Jayber Crow, by Wendell Berry

The main story in a recent issue of the newspaper that serves my small town was "Nevins Retires After Decades of Parts Service." Nevins sold auto parts for 40 years. At the end of this career, he offers no deep conclusions about life, but he does recall that "years ago, all Chevrolets took the same points, same condenser," and now auto parts have proliferated. Local residents recall him opening the store on Christmas morning to supply batteries. "Nevins isn't one to seek the limelight, so the News-Enterprise was pleased when he agreed to meet with us and talk about working in the Main Street store over the years." Anywhere outside the confines of northern Warren County the story would have no significance, but as Wendell Berry reminds us in Jayber Crow, a quietly perfect book, anywhere outside a real community may be outside the moral universe as well.

This novel--one of many Berry has written about the fictional town of Port William--works backwards. Instead of the usual story of a young man growing up in the stifling confines of a small community and breaking out into the freedom of the world (with perhaps a wistful glance back), Berry presents a character who grows up with too few attachments and finally escapes into the fabric of life of a real place. "You Can Go Home Again" could have served as the book's title. It is a daring idea, for Crow embraces limitation. He gives up a possible career as a preacher, the chance to be a university boy intent on studying literature, and then a job as a big-city barber, with all the gaudy diversions of town.

Settled back in the place where he was born, he even eventually gives up his car, confining himself to the distance his legs can carry him. He doesn't take a wife because the woman he loves is unavailable. Instead he marries her secretly, in his heart, and remains faithful to her. And yet the limits make no difference--or rather they serve to enlarge and deepen his understanding.