Fidelity: Five Stories

Wendell Berry writes beautifully about regular people living and working in the fictional farming town of Port William. He captures their relationships, their loyalty to each other, the natural world, and their community. If you liked Berry's novel Jayber Crow, you'll appreciate these fine stories. Recommended!

I purchased this book because it was required for a liberal arts class I am taking. I was pleasantly surprised. Although I have four months to read all five stories, I completed them in about 3 weeks. I have read other Wendell Berry stories so I was already familiar with the characters. What I like best about this book is the sense of community, stewardship, devotion and love. The book took me back to a simplier time when farming and community were important and a man's word was as good as gold.

These stories, especially the title story and "A Jonquil for Mary Penn," are among the finest I've ever read. They are stories of such moral integrity and beauty that I would include them among the best ever written by an American author, alongside the best by Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Linda Hogan, and Tony Earley. All are set in the fictional town of Port William, Kentucky, and all confront similar themes: death, honor, community. The story "Fidelity" is the most powerful, the story of a mountain man who, according to the most rigid interpretation of the law, kidnaps his dying father from a hospital. Although Berry is heavy-handed in getting his point across, the beauty and honesty of the story easily carried me through it. A luminous book by one of America's greatest living writers.

The title story touched me as no story has before or since. A son behaves intimately and unlawfully with his father during the days of his death. With the son we confront stupid laws and unfeeling bureaucracy and, in the end, vital community. The poignancy of the secret burial made me weep. How the son acts out his values with fidelity and grace is a story for all to learn from and be inspired. This is horror made beautiful. Berry's writing here is beyond criticism. Read this book and be renewed.