This volume of six linked stories and the novella from which the book derives its title is set in Port William from 1908 to the Second World War. Here Wendell Berry introduces two of his more indelible and poignant characters, Ptolemy Proudfoot and his wife Miss Minnie, remarkable for the comic and affectionate range that--with the mastery of this consummate storyteller working at the height of his powers--here approaches the Shakespearean. Tol Proudfoot is huge, outsized, in the tradition of the mythic. The three-hundred-pound farmer, personally imposing and unkempt, is also the most graceful of presences, reserved and gallant toward his tiny wife, the ninety-pound schoolteacher. Their contrasts are humorous, of course, and recall the tall tales of rural Americana. In the novella Watch with Me, we are given a story of such depth, breadth, and importance it earns being listed as one of the most important short stories written in the American language during the twentieth century.
Author Biography:
Wendell Berry, an essayist, novelist, and poet, has been honored with the T. S. Eliot Prize, the Aiken Taylor Award in Modern American Poetry, the John Hay Award of the Orion Society, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award, among others. In 2010, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama, and in 2016, he was the recipient of the Ivan Sandrof Life Achievement Award from the National Book Critics Circle. Berry lives with his wife, Tanya Berry, on their farm in Henry County, Kentucky. Household brands like Pepsi, Gatorade, Hyundai, Toyota, Nationwide Insurance, Coke, Microsoft, IBM, and so many more have trusted Tyler Boss's voice to tell their story. Ever since he was a kid, Tyler has loved listening to sports on the radio. He was always impressed by how the great storytellers could make fuzzy AM radio seem like he was right there watching the game in person. Listening to them inspired him to bring that same passion in the booth to tell your story. Crisp, clean audio and lightning-fast turnaround is what you can expect from Tyler's professional recording studio. He looks forward to telling your story. As a full-time voice talent and Audie-nominated audiobook narrator, Lyle Blaker has narrated nearly 100 audiobook titles, as well as countless hours of e-learning narration for major companies such as Houghton Mifflin, Harvard Business School, and Refinery Pass, and is an often-used voice for WGBH Channel 2 in Boston, Massachusetts. He is known for his warm, friendly, and approachable narration style.
