MARCE CATLETT: THE FORCE OF A STORY

MARCE CATLETT: THE FORCE OF A STORY by Wendell Berry

There are some books that resonate with your mind. There are some that resonate with your heart. Few and far between make it all the way to your soul. That's where Marce Catlett:The Force of a Story landed for me.

While this book is going to land in MY FAVORITES BOOKLIST, I need to preface this post by saying this is not a book that will resonate with all readers. (Honestly, does any book?) It deals with the evolution of the small family farm from the early 1900 hundreds to modern day. It is a fictional story, but one based on people that the author knows. This one holds a very near and dear place for me, because I have known people in my childhood like Marce Catlett and his kin, and their faces hover in my mind as I read the words of this story. This book is a part of a "series." I choke a bit on calling it that. The books follow people that live in Port William. Some of the stories bleed into each other as they deal with members from the same family, but it is possible to read them as stand alones.

Wendell Berry's newest book returns to Port William, Kentucky, a rural landscape punctuated primarily with hardworking, hands-in-the-soil farmers and their families. The story opens in 1906 with Marce rising just after midnight to ride his horse 10 miles to catch a 4 o'clock in the morning express train bound for Louisville to arrive at the auction house where his crop of tobacco for the year will be sold. To say that the family needs the money to relax the worry lines of foreheads and allow worried thoughts to be put to rest would be an understatement. Marce takes the day off, makes the journey, stands at the auction house to physically see the result only to witness it go for pennies on the pound. Barely enough to pay for the travel expenses of getting it to market and the commission charged by the auction house. He wearily turns away and begins the journey home to tell the family and begin the preparation for the next planting. Growing up, Marce's son, Wheeler, remembers this day. An intelligent boy, Wheeler has the opportunity to leave the bounds of Port William by means of politics and pursing an education. When the time comes to decide if he will forever leave the land he knows and settle for a promising job in big business, he knows he can't do it. He's tied to the land he grew up on, and he returns home to make a difference in the lives of his Port William family and neighbors. The story continues on to the grandson, Andy, who looks back at all the changes that have happened in the farming community over his lifetime. The introduction of technology and the competition of big business styled farms drastically changes the small community disrupting the closeness it once knew. Looking back on the lives of his father and grandfather, Andy knows that they each dealt with difficult circumstances in their lives and continued on to make a living out of the land that could be passed down to their children. The book ends in such a beautiful way summing up the heart and commitment stemming from the past into the future - . "...the land where more than a century ago, Marce Catlett departed with a cautious hope in the dark past midnight, came home broke, and in the dark before daylight the next morning went back to work." Life on the land will move forward

HEADS UP - There were a couple of minor profanities in the story.