"This is a book about Heaven," says Jayber Crow, "but I must say too
that . . . I have wondered sometimes if it would not finally turn out to
be a book about Hell." It is 1932 and he has returned to his native Port
William to become the town's barber.
Orphaned at age ten, Jayber Crow's acquaintance with loneliness and want
have made him a patient observer of the human animal, in both its
goodness and frailty.
He began his search as a "pre-ministerial student" at Pigeonville
College. There, freedom met with new burdens and a young man needed more
than a mirror to find himself. But the beginning of that finding was a
short conversation with "Old Grit," his profound professor of New
Testament Greek.
"You have been given questions to which you cannot be given answers.
You will have to live them out--perhaps a little at a time."
"And how long is that going to take?"
"I don't know. As long as you live, perhaps."
"That could be a long time."
"I will tell you a further mystery," he said. "It may take longer."
Wendell Berry's clear-sighted depiction of humanity's gifts--love and
loss, joy and despair--is seen though his intimate knowledge of the Port
William Membership.