In this, Wendell Berry's fifth novel and ninth work of fiction, Andy
Catlett revisits his own ninth year in the summer of 1944 when his
beloved uncle is shot and killed by the surly and mysterious Carp
Harmon. This is his Uncle Andrew, after whom the boy is named, someone
who savored "company, talk, some kind of to-do, something to laugh at."
Years later, still possessed by the story, Andy seeks to get to the
bottom of all this, to understand the two men and their lethal
connection.
"Berry deftly balances Andy's investigation into the town's past with an
equally moving realization not only of the sustaining value of memory
but of the manner in which they are shaped in enduring ways by what they
love . . . a sharp portrait of a town nursing its secrets over decades."
--Kirkus Reviews