Telling the Stories Right: Wendell Berry's Imagination of Port William

Wendell Berry thinks of himself as a storyteller. Its somewhat ironic then that he is better known as an essayist a poet and an advocate for small farmers. The essays in this collection consider the many facets of Berrys life and work but they focus on his efforts as a novelist and story writer. Indeed Berry had already published three novels before his seminal work of cultural criticism The Unsettling of America established him as an ardent defender of local communities and sustainable agriculture. And over the past fifty years he has published eight novels and more than forty-eight short stories set in the imagined community of Port William. His exquisite rendering of this small Kentucky town challenges us to see the beauty of our own places and communities and to tend their health threatened though it inevitably is. The twelve contributors to this collection approach Berrys fiction from a variety of perspectives--literary studies journalism theology history songwriting--to shed light on its remarkable ability to make a good life imaginable and compelling. The first collection devoted to Berrys fiction this volume insists that any consideration of Berrys work must begin with his stories.