These 13 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.
A misty melancholy hangs over every page of this novel. But Berry's powers as a writer render that heartbroken tone beautiful ... Berry is a master craftsman in all literary genres. No extra word or shabby sentence mars his work. The reader pauses often to admire the crystalline precision of his writing ... Despite its elegiac tone, How it Went is not despairing, and neither, we hope, is Berry ... Let us hope we also can embrace Berry's quiet celebration in this work and others of how people can learn to get along when they share a community. Though he writes almost exclusively of times past, Berry is a powerful writer for our time.
The folks in How It Went, whom Wendell Berry writes about so beautifully, may remind readers of hobbits ... Berry’s book is divided into 13 lovingly written chapters ... Together, they create a tale that gently unwinds and doubles back on itself, not so much like a river but more like a flowering vine ... A book full of such gentleness, wisdom and humility seems preposterous in this day and age. It’s also something of a miracle. We are lucky, in such times, to still have a writer like Wendell Berry.
