Yellow light filled the attic. The light locked with the dust—tons of dust up here—and the atmosphere of the place stuffed his head like a fever. It seemed that he perceived this light with every nerve of his body. The attic was mostly empty but toward the south wall was a queer arrangement of chains; the ends dangled about seven feet from the floor and had broad iron bands attached. The bands were hinged on one side so they could open and shut. The chains looked red in the yellow l...

Moments of Light Foreward by Annie Dillard. These stories prove that the mythic powers of the balladeer and the story teller survive even in this fragmented and unmysterious day. In the eleven stories gathered here, Fred Chappell engages and entertains our minds and sends us away singing in our hearts, more knowing, more understanding of ourselves. Fred Chappell's voice is sure and his vision is keen. As Annie Dillard writes in the foreword: "These are living, vivid n...

In this sharply innovative collection, renowned poet Fred Chappell layers words and images to create a new and dramatic poetic form—the poem-within-a-poem. Like the shadow box in the volume’s title, each piece consists of an inner world contained, framed, supported by an outer—the two interdependent, sometimes supplementary, often contrary. For example, the grim but gorgeous “The Caretakers” is a landscape that reveals another image inside it. Chappell also introduces sonnets in which the ...

The Inkling by Fred Chappell is, says the New York Times, "A work of genuine talent…. Chappell writes with power and passion and with flashes of humor."This early novel of Chappell's takes sixteen-year-old Jan to where we often try to go—the place where all is right just before it goes wrong. The novel begins and ends with Jan's vision in just that place and with his searing pain of ignorance and failure. Chappell gives us characters for tragedy: a mother, bere...

Solitary, graceful, and contemplative, cats have inspired poets from Charles Baudelaire to Margaret Atwood to serve as their chroniclers and celebrants. They have appeared, wrapped in their inscrutability, in verse both sensual and spiritual, weary and whimsical. With Familiars, Fred Chappell proves himself a worthy addition to the fellowship of poets who have sought to immortalize their beloved cats.Here are cats as personalities, cats as art objects and historical figures, cats a...

In his final book, the celebrated poet Fred Chappell reflects on life and the beyond. Details drawn from daily actions, religion, classical myth, and the Appalachian landscape adorn this autumnal collection that unearths connections both strong and tenuous among apparently disparate subjects, all percolated with Chappell’s signature wit and warm vision. A student’s observation that “Poems are how we see with our eyes closed” comes to resemble an icon of sorrow. A stairway to heaven ends wi...

Award-winning author Fred Chappell has so enraptured us with his rich storytelling, he deserves to be counted among our national treasures. Steeped in Appalachian culture and tradition, this saga of a North Carolina family is a bewitching combination of wit, humor and pathos.Jess Kirkman’s mother is dying of congestive heart failure, and he has come home to be at her bedside. Charged with getting family affairs in order, he faces the daunting task of sorting out the secret workshop...

Farewell, I'm Bound to Leave You is rich with the music of the Southern mountains and the stories of their people. In this novel from acclaimed author Fred Chappell, Jess Kirkman's grandmother is dying, and Jess remembers the tales she and his mother have passed down to him--a chorus of women's voices that sing and share and celebrate the common song of life.

James Christopher—book editor, husband, and father of two—is headed for trouble. Once a North Carolina farm boy who grew up hoeing, fighting, and listening to his grandmother read from the Bible, James resigns from his job for no apparent reason, drinks too much, fails in his attempt to take up writing, and, following the advice of a skirt-chasing rogue, has an affair with a woman he dislikes. Daring to recall the events of his childhood, especially the fire that destroyed his grand...

One of our most acclaimed and versatile authors, Fred Chappell is comfortably at home in fiction, poetry, and literary criticism. A Way of Happening gathers his essays and reviews of contemporary poetry. Chappell consider new writers as well as more established authors, including Alfred Corn, William Matthews, A. R. Ammons, Linda Pastan, Julia Randall, Cornelius Eady, Alan Shapiro, and many others. And there are essays on the plight of the critic ("Thanks but No Thanks") and the delicate r...

Ancestors and Others collects selected stories from the legendary southern writer, Fred ChappellIn this collection, Fred Chappell shows his mastery across a range of genres. Featuring folk fables in the Twain tradition, realistic stories of growing up in remote Appalachia, stories of family, kin, and community, and tales of the fantastic and spooky, this book will delight fans and surprise new readers.

Violence and sex in a small Southern city. Arkie, Clemmie, Oxie, and Johns are linked by a schoolboy's prank. Arkie, Clemmie, and Oxie are three of a kind: cons who grub for small change. They have no history and no future. Johns is their counterpart in a brighter universe. His thievery is sanctioned because he's Family in a small Southern city. Arkie: Suddenly it occurred to him that this street, Gimlet Street, could take you anywhere in the world, it was joined to all th...