Look Back All the Green Valley

Ron Charles

...[A]a book sparkling with life and charm....Kirkman blends family history and myth into an enchanting journey of rediscovering his father....This [book] isn't just about reclaiming his father, but about reclaiming a child's perspective of his father, complete with all the dormant delight and awe.
—The Christian Science Monitor

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Joe Robert Kirkman has been dead for 10 years, and his wife, Cora, is ailing when their son, poet and college professor Jess, returns to the mountains of western North Carolina in the final volume of the Kirkman saga, Chappell's chronicle of this curious Appalachian family. Strong-willed but incurably depressed, Cora has already begun preparations for her own death. Because of a mixup at the local cemetery, the family burial plot must be relocated, and Jess and his sister, Mitzi, are ordered to find a suitable new plot, for which they begin entreating neighbors who may have land to spare. Meanwhile, Jess must finally clean out his father's abandoned shed of a workshop. During the excavation, Jess discovers a map marked with the names of women, which he believes may be an adulterous "black book." He sets out to find the women in question, and to perhaps discover his father through the evidence of his sins, though what he finally unearths is both more honorable and more bizarre than anything he could have imagined. The unfolding tale is both a traditional mystery and a journey of introspection, the former shaped by oral history while the latter is governed by private memory. Both follow a pattern dictated by Jess's struggle to translate passages of Dante's Inferno, which acts here as a thematic chorus. Chappell studs his novel with autobiographical quirks (Jess writes under the pseudonym "Fred Chappell"), and narrates with his trademark voice, one both poetic and inclusive of the idioms of the Appalachian Mountain region. Fans of Chappell (Farewell, I'm Bound to Leave You; Brighten the Corner Where You Are) will find this an intelligent and rewarding if sentimental closure to the Kirkman cycle.

Library Journal

Prolific poet/novelist Chappell again chronicles the lives of the Kirkman family, who have appeared in three previous works, most recently Farewell, I'm Bound To Leave You. Son Jess Kirkman returns to the North Carolina mountain town where he grew up because his mother is dying and there are still many loose ends associated with his late father's estate. Jess and his sister, Mitzi, must find a final resting place for both parents, and Jess must also locate his father's mysterious workshop and dispose of its contents. The treasure map and large bunch of keys he discovers in the process help Jess to know his father better after death. The townspeople's personalities and picturesque charm supply a unique perspective, and Chappell's irrepressible humor and homespun wisdom depict a long-gone way of Southern Appalachian life. A loving look back to a long-ago time and place; for public libraries and Southern fiction collections.--Ellen R. Cohen, Rockville, MD Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Beth Wolfensberger Singer

Chappell knows how to place his words. The hillbilly dialect, when it comes, is perfect; the similes, while too frequent, often delight: one voice ''made a sound like a fat man trying to get comfortable in a new splint-bottom chair.'' You can't imagine a more trustworthy narrator than Jess, yet Chappell occasionally has him stretch things into the realm of magical realism. That's O.K. Though this novel includes a risky detour into science fiction, it only enriches the book's earthier elements.
—The New York Times Book Review

Duke

He notices the everyday, celebrates it, and writes about it clearly without patronizing stereotypes.

Ron Charles

...[A]a book sparkling with life and charm....Kirkman blends family history and myth into an enchanting journey of rediscovering his father....This [book] isn't just about reclaiming his father, but about reclaiming a child's perspective of his father, complete with all the dormant delight and awe.
—The Christian Science Monitor

Kirkus Reviews

You're probably not human if you don't laugh out loud and wipe away tears all the way through this delightful continuation of the much-loved North Carolina poet and novelist's Kirkman saga (Farewell, I'm Bound to Leave You, 1996, etc.). This fourth installment is again narrated by Jess Kirkman, a teacher and poet who has meandered some distance away from his family's strong roots in the amiable town of Tipton (near Asheville)—as Jess is reminded by his plainspoken mother Cora, whose looming death from congestive heart failure brings him to her bedside, then to the task of ensuring that she and his late father Joe Robert, ten years gone, may be buried together (a fussy local ordinance having created problems). That task becomes a Dantesque journey (Jess has, not so coincidentally, embarked on a translation of the Inferno) to the nearby towns (bearing names like Vestibule, Downhill, and Easy) where the exuberant Joe Robert—a farmer, teacher, and self-taught would-be astronaut—traveled, perhaps doing good deeds, perhaps dallying with a dozen or so unknown women (a "treasure map" Jess finds among his father's possessions suggests multiple possibilities). Jess's searches are skillfully juxtaposed against richly detailed memories of his own youth and his father's prime (the episode describing his tiny sister Mitzi's abortive venture into prizefighting is a Mark Twain-like gem), and increasingly revelatory visits with the still sharp-witted Cora. The story climaxes at a lively picnic attended by all the Kirkmans' nearest and dearest, and concludes—as it began—with Jess digging up his father's coffin (to be moved), and unearthing a wonderful, transfiguringsurprise. A work of matchless ingenuity and eloquence—heartwarmingly funny, deeply moving, and populated by a countyful of folks you'll wish you could meet and get to know. Chappell's Kirkman novels are among the finest fiction of our time—even if they're too modest and polite to come right out and say so.