Chinaberry

by James Still, Silas House (Editor)

Overview

Celebrated as the "Dean of Appalachian Literature," James Still has won the appreciation of audiences in Appalachia and beyond for more than seventy years. The author of the classics River of Earth (1940) and The Wolfpen Poems (1986), Still is known for his careful prose construction and for the poetry of his meticulous, rhythmic style. Upon his death, however, one manuscript remained unpublished. Still's friends, family, and fellow writer Silas House will now deliver this story to readers, havi

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813141091
Publisher:	University Press of Kentucky
Publication date:	08/01/2012
Pages:	172
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Silas House is the bestselling author of Clay's Quilt, A Parchment of Leaves, The Coal Tattoo, Eli the Good and Something's Rising: Appalachians Fighting Mountaintop Removal. House is NEH Chair in Appalachian Studies at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky. He lives in London, Kentucky.

Editorial Reviews

"Chinaberry is a masterfully written story about the complexities of love, relationship, childhood, and memory."—Lexington Herald-Leader

Tom Eblen

A classic story of adolescence by the late Still (1906–2001; River of Earth) pursues migrant workers from Alabama to an East Texas ranch. The 13-year-old narrator has accompanied his father's friend, Ernest, and two young men to Texas looking for work; the barefoot boy is small for his age, and as they pass through an East Texas town, he attracts the attention of a wealthy farmer, Anson Winters, who invites the four of them back to his Chinaberry ranch to stay and work for the summer. Anson lost his son several years before and has not gotten over it; also a widower, he has remarried the lovely Lurie, though in three years of marriage they still have no children of their own. The narrator is installed in Anson and Lurie's bedroom and otherwise spoiled, evidence of Anson's transference of affection to the boy, while Lurie intimates that she and the boy are mere substitutes. The reader is never quite certain where Still is leading—editor House wonders about this in his helpful intro—which leaves a heavy feeling of unfinished-ness about the project, but there are small nostalgic pleasures to be found in reading this simple story of Americana, directly told. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

Chinaberry preserves a time and place of vast cotton fields, free range cattle on huge ranches, and a different kind of life in which the characters and relationships make one wish for more. Highly recommended. — Frances M. Ramsey

Frances M. Ramsey

[...] Still's readers will appreciate and perhaps even treasure [this book].

West Virginia History

"Chinaberry is the capstone of James Still's extraordinary career. It is brilliant—dark and hilarious by turns, beautiful and chilling, perhaps the most original coming of age story ever written, with a mystery lodged right in the heart of it."—Lee Smith, author of Saving Grace

From the Publisher