Jayber Crow

Four-year-old Jonah Crow loses both parents to the 1918 flu epidemic and is taken in by elderly relatives, both of whom die when he is 10. The foundation of love for his people and his rural northern Kentucky homeland has been deeply laid, however, and it sees him through the orphanage in which he is labeled J. Crow, the seminary in which he learns that the call he feels isn't to the pulpit, early jobs and a trek back home during the great winter flood of 1937, and into his real calling as Jayber, bachelor barber of Port William, the epicenter of all Berry's fiction. Giving dramatic structure to Jayber's memoirs, which consist mostly of anecdotes revealing his and the other Port Williamites' personalities and souls, is his long, silent love for Mattie Keith, whom he first notices, indelibly, when she is 14. She marries handsome Troy Chatham, who, trying to become an ever-grander agribusinessman, gradually wastes her inheritance, and who, perhaps partly in self-loathing, cheats on her. When Jayber sees Troy cheating, he vows to be the faithful husband he feels Mattie should have, and so he is until her death, though only he knows it. While affection and ardor suffuse this beautifully crafted novel, sentimentality and sensationalism are not in it. With the seeming effortlessness of art, Berry marries the book's host of amusing and affecting stories and characters to the practical and religious lessons he has learned and striven to communicate during his 40-year literary career. Informing all those lessons is the insight that loving care for others, both living and dead, and for God's creation redeems and justifies one's life. This may be Berry's finest book. --Ray Olson

The role of community in the shaping of character is a recurring theme in the work of poet, essayist and novelist Berry, as evidenced once more in this gratifying novel set in Berry's fictional Port William, Ky. Jayber Crow, town barber from 1937 until 1969, is born in the environs of Port William, but after the deaths of his parents and, later, his guardians, he is sent to an out-of-town orphanage at the age of 10. Returning 13 years later, in the flood year of 1937, the solitary young man goes on to learn the comradely ways of the town. "In modern times much of the doing of the mighty has been the undoing of Port William and its kind," Crow reflectsÄa reflection, too, of Berry's often-stated beliefs that salvation must be local, that rootlessness and a fixation on the postindustrial era's bright new toys will destroy us environmentally and economically. Crow earns his living with simple tools; he becomes a church sexton, though he is not unthinkingly pious; and his unrequited love for farmer's wife Mattie Chatham is pure and strong enough to bring him serene faith. In contrast, Mattie's husband, Troy, the novel's villain, disturbs the "patterns and cycles of work" on Mattie's family farm, trumpeting "whatever I see, I want" and using a tractor. The tractor stands for the introduction of new machinery and the unraveling of the fabric of family farming. It is not surprising when Troy cheats on his wife nor does it come as a shock when the Chatham's young daughter becomes a victim of dire chance. Berry's narrative style is deliberately traditional, and the novel's pace is measured and leisurely. Crow's life, which begins as WWI is about to erupt, is emblematic of a century of upheaval, and Berry's anecdotal and episodic tale sounds a challenge to contemporary notions of progress. It is to Berry's credit that a novel so freighted with ideas and ideology manages to project such warmth and luminosity. 12-city author tour. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Kentucky poet and novelist Berry (A Timbered Choir) brings to life the title character, an orphan from a rural river valley near Louisville in the early 20th century. When his young parents die, Jonah (later "J," "Jay Bird," and finally "Jayber") is sent to live with older relatives, Aunt Cordie and Uncle Othy. They, too, die before he is grown up, and he is sent to the Good Shepherd orphanage, a grim institution where his name is shortened to an initial. After an abortive try at the ministry, Jayber wanders back to his hometown of Port William, where he is more an observer on the edge of society and yearns for local girl Mattie Chatam from afar. The richly portrayed community unfolds delicately and surely, with the human dramas of its inhabitants revealed from Jayber's perspective. A moving, lyrical work on a small canvas, this is recommended for most libraries.DAnn H. Fisher, Radford P.L., VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

An elegiac celebration of the redemptive power of love and community, by the prolific poet, novelist, and essayist. This tenth work of fiction by Berry is set, like most of its predecessors (A World Lost, 1996, etc.), in the fictional precincts of Port William, Kentucky, one of the most richly imagined communities in contemporary fiction. Jayber Crow, the town barber for over thirty years, beginning in the 1930s, offers a first-person recollection both of the town's quiet communal pleasures and of the efforts of its hardworking, and often hard-pressed, farmers to secure some measure of personal happiness. Their struggles are made somewhat easier by the unspoken but profound sense of community that most in Port William share, a commitment to support each other through the hard patches of life without calling attention to the help being given or taken. Jayber, an orphan and an outsider, is more aware of the complex interdependence of families and friends than most. His barbershop is a focal point of local society, a place in which many come to relax, to exchange or confirm news, and to share gossip. And Jayber, cordial but closemouthed, becomes a confidant--and confessor--to many. While the leisurely narrative is in part Jayber's recollections of the everyday patterns and intermittent sorrows of the community, it is also the record of the impossible love Jayber harbors, for most of his adult life, for Maggie, a warm, intelligent woman married to the hustling, manipulative Troy Cheatham. Berry's work has often displayed an interest in the nature and effect of religious faith. That interest takes center stage here. Jayber's love for Maggie, rather than corroding his character because it can never be expressed, leads him to a serene faith, which meets its greatest test as Port William is overcome by the modern world (farms fail, families fray and disperse, and the ubiquitous developers move in) and Maggie becomes mortally ill. Jayber's hard-won acceptance of loss offers a compelling and--by contemporary standards--quite unusual climax. A precise and moving evocation both of a vanishing lifestyle and of the liberating power of faith. (Author tour) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

/*Starred Review*/ Four-year-old Jonah Crow loses both parents to the 1918 flu epidemic and is taken in by elderly relatives, both of whom die when he is 10. The foundation of love for his people and his rural northern Kentucky homeland has been deeply laid, however, and it sees him through the orphanage in which he is labeled J. Crow, the seminary in which he learns that the call he feels isn't to the pulpit, early jobs and a trek back home during the great winter flood of 1937, and into his real calling as Jayber, bachelor barber of Port William, the epicenter of all Berry's fiction. Giving dramatic structure to Jayber's memoirs, which consist mostly of anecdotes revealing his and the other Port Williamites' personalities and souls, is his long, silent love for Mattie Keith, whom he first notices, indelibly, when she is 14. She marries handsome Troy Chatham, who, trying to become an ever-grander agribusinessman, gradually wastes her inheritance, and who, perhaps partly in self-loathing, cheats on her. When Jayber sees Troy cheating, he vows to be the faithful husband he feels Mattie should have, and so he is until her death, though only he knows it. While affection and ardor suffuse this beautifully crafted novel, sentimentality and sensationalism are not in it. With the seeming effortlessness of art, Berry marries the book's host of amusing and affecting stories and characters to the practical and religious lessons he has learned and striven to communicate during his 40-year literary career. Informing all those lessons is the insight that loving care for others, both living and dead, and for God's creation redeems and justifies one's life. This may be Berry's finest book. ((Reviewed August 2000)) Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews

Kentucky poet and novelist Berry (A Timbered Choir) brings to life the title character, an orphan from a rural river valley near Louisville in the early 20th century. When his young parents die, Jonah (later "J," "Jay Bird," and finally "Jayber") is sent to live with older relatives, Aunt Cordie and Uncle Othy. They, too, die before he is grown up, and he is sent to the Good Shepherd orphanage, a grim institution where his name is shortened to an initial. After an abortive try at the ministry, Jayber wanders back to his hometown of Port William, where he is more an observer on the edge of society and yearns for local girl Mattie Chatam from afar. The richly portrayed community unfolds delicately and surely, with the human dramas of its inhabitants revealed from Jayber's perspective. A moving, lyrical work on a small canvas, this is recommended for most libraries. Ann H. Fisher, Radford P.L., VA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

The role of community in the shaping of character is a recurring theme in the work of poet, essayist and novelist Berry, as evidenced once more in this gratifying novel set in Berry's fictional Port William, Ky. Jayber Crow, town barber from 1937 until 1969, is born in the environs of Port William, but after the deaths of his parents and, later, his guardians, he is sent to an out-of-town orphanage at the age of 10. Returning 13 years later, in the flood year of 1937, the solitary young man goes on to learn the comradely ways of the town. "In modern times much of the doing of the mighty has been the undoing of Port William and its kind," Crow reflects a reflection, too, of Berry's often-stated beliefs that salvation must be local, that rootlessness and a fixation on the postindustrial era's bright new toys will destroy us environmentally and economically. Crow earns his living with simple tools; he becomes a church sexton, though he is not unthinkingly pious; and his unrequited love for farmer's wife Mattie Chatham is pure and strong enough to bring him serene faith. In contrast, Mattie's husband, Troy, the novel's villain, disturbs the "patterns and cycles of work" on Mattie's family farm, trumpeting "whatever I see, I want" and using a tractor. The tractor stands for the introduction of new machinery and the unraveling of the fabric of family farming. It is not surprising when Troy cheats on his wife nor does it come as a shock when the Chatham's young daughter becomes a victim of dire chance. Berry's narrative style is deliberately traditional, and the novel's pace is measured and leisurely. Crow's life, which begins as WWI is about to erupt, is emblematic of a century of upheaval, and Berry's anecdotal and episodic tale sounds a challenge to contemporary notions of progress. It is to Berry's credit that a novel so freighted with ideas and ideology manages to project such warmth and luminosity. 12-city author tour. (Sept.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.