Look Back All the Green Valley

The Poet Laureate of North Carolina offers a novel of a man who returns to his small Appalachian hometown and unearths a family mystery. Jess Kirkman returns to the North Carolina mountain town of his boyhood to be with his ailing mother and finally settle the family's accounts after the death of his father ten years ago. Cleaning out his father's secret work room reunites him with the irrepressible Joe Kirkman and leads him to make new discoveries—in the dusty room he finds an unusual machine made of stovepipe and ceramic, and a handwritten map. These clues lead him to uncover a part of his father's history he never knew. Rich in the story telling traditions of Southern Appalachia, Fred Chappell's magical novel celebrates a way of life that has passed. Look Back All the Green Valley follows Chappell's three previous novels—Farewell, I'm Bound to Leave You, Brighten the Corner Where You Are, and I'm Am One of You Forever—and concludes one of the most rewarding cycles of novels in recent memory.