How It Went: Thirteen Stories of the Port William Membership

"At the age of eighty, Andy Catlett is preparing himself to join the whole Membership of Port William, which includes those alive as well as those departed who still seem vividly alive. As he looks back on his own life through thirteen stories that rangefrom his earliest childhood memories to the present day, from 1945 to 2001, How It Went reveals Andy at his most loving and retrospective, coming to the end of his days surrounded by the love and memory of family and friends, living among the living and the dead"--
An American novelist, poet, essayist and environmental activist offers 13 new stories set in Port William, Kentucky that explore the memories and imagination of Andy Catlett, a beloved character from his previous works of fiction.
Thirteen new stories of the Port William membership spanning the decades from World War II to the present momentFor those readers of his poetry and inspired by his increasingly vital work as advocate for rational land use and the right-size life, these stories of Wendell Berry's offer entry into the fictional place of value and beauty that is Port William, Kentucky. Berry has said it's taken a lifetime for him to learn to write like an old man, and that's what we have here, stories told with grace and ease and majesty. Wendell Berry is one of our greatest living American authors, writing with the wisdom of maturity and the incandescence that comes of love.These thirteen new works explore the memory and imagination of Andy Catlett, one of the well-loved central characters of the Port William saga. From 1932 to 2021, these stories span the length of Andy’s life, from before the outbreak of the Second World War to the threatened end of rural life in America.