The Education of Chauncey Doolittle - Hardcover

by James Kibler (Author)

"This fine novel should have an honored place on the same shelf as the novels of Andrew Lytle and Wendell Berry." --Ron Rash, award-winning poet, short story writer, and author of Saints at the River

"THE EDUCATION OF CHAUNCEY DOOLITTLE is the perfect companion for the December fireside and the July streamside, a book to be sipped and never gulped" --Fred Chappell, author of I Am One of You Forever

"Kibler has provided readers with another refreshing stroll down a breezy country lane." --James Cantrell, author of How Celtic Culture Invented Southern Literature

An eloquent advocate for the redemptive values of the agrarian society, James Kibler is a masterful storyteller with an uncanny talent for making his characters come alive through dialogue. Whether they are farmers, fishermen, or shopkeepers, Kibler's characters mind the land as well as their ancestors. In this expressive novel, Kibler presents the daily life of Chauncey Doolittle and his companions, small-town fellows who gather at a country store to wrestle with the powerful forces of modernity, the pull of the past, and their deep affection for one another and the land they call home.

Spanning a cycle of four seasons, this third book in the Clay Bank County Series brings protagonist Chauncey Doolittle into his own as a poet and student of Latin, language, and the wonderfully rich humanity around him. Told with gentle humor and warmth, this perceptive novel is as much a study of the landscape itself as it is a tribute to those men and women who live in solidarity with the land. A collection of Chauncey's poems follows at the end of the work, providing a softly cadenced close to a bittersweet story of endurance, remembrance, and transition.

Front Jacket

Set in 2008, this third novel in the Clay Bank County Series presents an intimate study of Chauncey Doolittle-thoughtful widower, poet, and steward of the land-as he struggles to come to terms with the changes unfolding across his beloved hometown landscape. Tracing the daily life of its title character and such companions as affable storyteller Triggerfoot Tinsley, this work exemplifies James Everett Kibler's lyrical and poignant style celebrating southern agrarian values.

As the passage of time threatens the survival of Kildee's General Store and the tradition of stories shared by its patrons in front of the shiny black stove, Chauncey and his neighbors band together in an effort to preserve their cherished way of life, constantly threatened by urbanization. Spanning one year, the work draws upon the rhythms of the seasons as the place itself, the Clay Bank community, and its inhabitants emerge as forces of salvation and endurance in light of the ceaseless crush of modernity.

Back Jacket

"THE EDUCATION OF CHAUNCEY DOOLITTLE is a plaintive, yet also humorous, rendering of a vanishing way of life. This fine novel should have an honored place on the same shelf as the novels of Andrew Lytle and Wendell Berry."
--Ron Rash, award-winning poet, short story writer, and author of Saints at the River and Serena

"Kibler has provided readers with another refreshing stroll down a breezy country lane, and this time he makes more explicit what has been inherent in the previous Clay Bank County novels. The world of the globalist fast lane is at best oblivious to the destruction it heaps on 'the least little dooryard things.' The wildflowers, however, survive in the cracks and the unexploited wilderness."
--James P. Cantrell, author of How Celtic Culture Invented Southern Literature

"In his new book, James Kibler returns to dearly familiar territory and finds a way to blend folklore, politics, philosophy, history, and sharp opinion in a work of leisurely good humor and loyal fellowship. THE EDUCATION OF CHAUNCEY DOOLITTLE is the perfect companion for the December fireside and the July streamside, a book to be sipped and never gulped. Flavorsome!"
--Fred Chappell, author of I Am One of You Forever

Author Biography

James Everett Kibler is a novelist, poet, and professor of English at the University of Georgia, where he teaches popular courses in Southern literature, examining such figures as William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Cormac McCarthy, Wendell Berry, and Larry Brown. Born and raised in upcountry South Carolina, Kibler spends much of his spare time tending to the renovation of an 1804 plantation home and the reforestation of the surrounding acreage. This home served as the subject of his first book, Our Fathers' Fields: A Southern Story, for which he was awarded the prestigious Fellowship of Southern Writers Award for Nonfiction in 1999 and the Southern Heritage Society's Award for Literary Achievement. Kibler received his doctorate from the University of South Carolina, and his poetry has been honored by the Poetry Society of South Carolina and has appeared in publications throughout the country. In October 2004, the League of the South bestowed on him the Jefferson Davis Lifetime Achievement Award. Kibler enjoys gardening, organic farming, and research into Southern history and culture. An avid preservationist, he prescribes to Allen Tate's comment that the task of the civilized intelligence is perpetual salvage. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the Southern Garden History Society, the League of the South, and the William Gilmore Simms Society. He is listed in Contemporary Writers', Who's Who in America, and Who's Who in the World. He divides his time between Whitmire, South Carolina, and Athens, Georgia.