Fred Chappell

Wonderfully funny and also deeply touching, I Am One of You Forever is the story of a young boy's coming of age. Set in the hills and hollows of western North Carolina in the years around World War II, it tells of ten-year-old Jess and his family -- father, mother, grandmother, foster brother, and an odd assortment of other relatives -- who usher Jess into the adult world, with all its attendant joys and sorrows, knowledge and mystery. Jess's father is feisty, restless, and fun-loving. His mother is straitlaced and serious but accepts with grace and good humor the antics of the men of the family, a trait she learned from her own mother. Johnson Gibbs is the orphaned teenager who comes to live with them on their mountain farm. Life on the laurel-covered mountain is isolated and at times difficult, but for Jess it is made rich and remarkable through his relationship with his father and, especially, Johnson Gibbs. Visiting the farm from time to time is a gallery of eccentric relatives who are surely among the most memorable creations in recent fiction. Uncle Luden is a womanizer who left the mountains years ago for a job in California that "paid actual cash money." Uncle Gurton has a spooky way of appearing and disappearing without ever seeming to enter or exit, but it is his flowing beard, which he has apparently never trimmed and which he keeps tucked inside his overalls, that is of most fascination to Jess. Uncle Zeno is a storyteller. With the words "That puts me in mind of..." everyone around knows that he is about to launch into another of his endless tales. Uncle Runkin, who always brings his handmade coffin to sleep in whenever he visits, spends his time carving intricate designs into the coffin and trying to find just the right epitaph for his tombstone. Aunt Samantha Barefoot stops by for a brief spell, too. A country singer and cousin to Jess's grandmother, she is a woman of uncensored speech (Jess learns a lot from her) and honest emotions. Chappell tells the story of all of these characters in a series of chapters that range from fantasy and near farce to pathos. As notable for its lyrical descriptions of the rural settings as for its finely honed vernacular dialogue, I Am One of You Forever shows us a world full of wit and wisdom and the sadness at the heart of things. As one would expect from a poet like Fred Chappell, every line offers its own pleasures and satisfactions.

A Novel

I Am One of You Forever

Peter Leland, a young minister, inherits his grandparents' farm in the mountains of North Carolina. There, he aims to finish his book on Dagon, the maimed pagan deity of fertility described in the First Book of Samuel. But returning to the place of murky childhood memories strangely effects Peter.

Dagon

Fred Chappell's A Shadow All of Light, a stylish, episodic fantasy novel, follows the exploits of Falco, a young man from the country, who arrives in the port city of Tardocco with the ambition of becoming an apprentice to a master shadow thief. Maestro Astolfo, whose mysterious powers of observation would rival those of Sherlock Holmes, sees Falco's potential and puts him through a grueling series of physical lessons and intellectual tests. Falco's adventures coalesce into one overarching story of con men, monsters, ingenious detection, cats, and pirates. A wry humor leavens this fantastical concoction, and the style is as rich and textured as one would hope for from Chappell, a distinguished poet as well as a World Fantasy Award-winning fantasy writer.

A Shadow All of Light

Look Back All the Green Valley

A collection of thirteen short stories which describes what happens to individuals who obtain peculiar objects of their particular desires

A Book of Stories

More Shapes Than One

Fred Chappell continues to astonish. In his new collection of verse, he matches the vitality and grace, the deep intelligence and keenly observant sensibility, that characterize such earlier works as Midquest and Source. First and Last Words revives the traditional practice of supplying new prologue and epilogue poems to classic works of literature. The poems invite renewed acquaintance with familiar works and authors—The Georgics and The Dynasts, Livy and Lucretius, Goethe and Tolstoy, The Wind in the Willows—and are offered as a celebration of their enduring significance. In “The Watchman,” a prologue to the Orteseia, Chappell writes: The watchman keeps his vigil on the roof Of the ruining house. This long year, Stretched out on his belly like a hound, He has awaited the semaphore Blaze, awaited proof Of the victory that shall pull down A proud and bitter family. In rain Or cold starshine, gripping the eave, He has searched the hard horizon for a sign. Still other poems are appreciations of music or the visual arts, as in “My Hand Placed on a Rubens Drawing”: The ages work toward mastery Of a single gesture. A torso’s twist, The revelation of a thigh, White stone corded in a fist: Fragments that might still add up To compose a figure of the perfected soul As it releases from the grip Of vision that burned to draw it whole. All of the poems in First and Last Words are marked by a thoughtful use of the voice and a careful attention to language. They confirm Fred Chappell’s status as one of our very finest living poets.

Poems

First and Last Words

As his grandmother lies dying and her family gathers around her, young Jess Kirkman remembers all the stories she has passed down, sharing the wisdom and sweetness of life from generation to generation. Reprint. 30,000 first printing. Tour.

Stories

Farewell, I'm Bound to Leave You

Recounts the adventures of a North Carolina high school teacher who rescues a drowning child, retrieves a goat from the school's roof, and confronts a mysterious custodian

Brighten the Corner Where You Are

This collection of humorous and satiric verse takes its title from that thoroughly southern term meaning “irreverent retort,” “ironic remark,” or “scoffing observation.” The ancient Roman poet Juvenal noted that his world made it hard not to write satire. Fred Chappell, finding his contemporary era analogous to that of imperial Rome, has in Backsass given in to the impulse for invective and mockery. Whether addressing the political, the poetical, or the practical, Chappell brandishes his lexical sword, ribbing our shortcomings, offering tonic advice, and occasionally shedding a tear for our fallen ideals. Some poetry is fine wine. Backsass is the driest of martinis.

Backsass

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 the other streets there were. He shook his head, grinning. This was his territory. He was chained to Gimlet and he was chained to Clemmie, that green-eyed girl he was so helplessly in love with. Chappell has outstanding gifts as a writer! - Southern Observer Chappell writes like a whiz! - Book Wee Chappell writes with imagination and descriptive grace! - Los Angeles Times Chappell is a powerful and demanding and uncompromising writerOC very powerful and impressive! - Greensboro Daily News Fred Chappell is a past Poet Laureate of North Carolina. Boson Books also offers The Inkling, Dagon, Moments of Light, and It Is Time, Lord by Fred Chappell.

The Gaudy Place

This sampling of the author's work includes a complete novel, "Dagon", substantial portions of four other novels, several short stories, and poems culled from eleven volumes

The Fred Chappell Reader

Brighten the Corner Where You Are is the story of a day in the life of Joe Robert Kirkman, a North Carolina mountain schoolteacher, sly prankster, country philosopher, and family man. This novel from award-winning author Fred Chappell has won the hearts of readers and reviewers across the country.

The occasion might be a holiday or a wedding, a christening or a funeral, and a family is gathered on the eve to eat, drink, talk, and cast eyes upon each other. Like all relations, the extended family in Fred Chappell’s Family Gathering has its foibles and strengths—oddballs and know-it-alls, hussies and historians, sparring spouses and model marriages. More than anything, this family loves gossip. Chappell portrays its members one and all in a series of sharply limned character sketches. In this crowd of strangers we may find personalities familiar, maybe too familiar. Perhaps we may even find a glimpse or two of ourselves. Framed by the observations of Elizabeth, “age eight, / Priss-proud in her finery and bored / Bored bored,” the collection introduces ebullient Cousin Marjorie, self-satisfied Uncle Einar, evasive Cousin Lilias, cunning Aunt Wilma, aged Uncle Nahum, convivial Uncle Hobart, confusing Aunt Alicia—set down in poems terse, witty, sympathetic, thoughtful, and satiric. Cousin Elmer “tends the family tree, / Shaping it to topiary rare / And strange as he trims a little here and there / And lops some ugly branches drastically.” Cousin Lola “charts her paramours / On a performance scale from One to Ten / And then announces publicly the scores.” Uncle Brit “cuts you off before you say / Two sentences and lets you know / He knows already what you think / And what you think is pretty dumb.” And Aunt Agnes, ever forgiving, “recognizes what we are, / Yet holds us in affection / As steadfast as the morning star, / As if our faults had no connection / With the persons we are within.” Although there is no continuous story line, the poems in Family Gathering almost amount to a piece of fiction. We leave these lines with full knowledge of the characters—their personalities, prejudices, idiosyncrasies, and intricate relationships with one another. Chappell gives us gossip, but also gossip parodied. If your family is like most, sparks of recognition will leap from every page. With results like those of the Polaroids taken by the family photographer, Chappell “makes us look as scary / As old woodcuts in a bestiary— / But maybe, after all, that’s us.” Varied, humorous, and, above all, true, Family Gathering is pure mean fun.

Family Gathering

The last in the Kirkman family cycle by one of our most treasured writers In Look Back All the Green Valley, 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.

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 light. He held one of the bands and stroked his finger along the inside and it came away reddish. Rust, he thought; but it didn't flake; it wasn't gritty like rust. It was old, caked blood. . . Peter is mesmerized by his find and he begins a journey to where a bloodstained god awaits the last of the Lelands. ""I am honestly convinced that Fred Chappell is one of the finest writers of this time, one of the rare and precious few who are truly 'major.'"" George Garrett, author of "Death of the Fox"and "The Succession." Fred Chappell is a past Poet Laureate of North Carolina. Boson Books also offers "Dagon" "The Gaudy Place" and "Moments of Light"by Fred Chappell.

The Fellowship of Southern Writers was founded in 1987 under the inspiration of Cleanth Brooks for the purpose of encouraging excellence and recognizing distinction in southern letters. Membership is by invitation only, and the group meets biennially and bestows prizes in fiction, poetry, drama, and nonfiction. Locales thus represents poetry of truly superlative quality, gathering works by Fellowship members and by esteemed writers who have won Fellowship awards for verse: A. R. Ammons, James Applewhite, Wendell Berry, Fred Chappell, Kelly Cherry, James Dickey, George Garrett, Rodney Jones, Andrew Hudgins, T. R. Hummer, Yusef Komunyakaa, Robert Morgan, George Scarbrough, Dave Smith, Henry Taylor, Ellen Bryant Voigt, Robert Penn Warren, and Charles Wright. Chosen by Fred Chappell, these poems reflect the truth that the general is most securely held to when in the grip of the particular. They are not just specific, not only regional, but tightly joined to highly detailed places within the southern sphere, wielding a far greater force and universal application than a placeless poetry might have. This “southern gazette of heart and mind with mountains and valleys, forests and farms, rivers and marshes, graveyards and barrooms,” as Fred Chappell describes the volume, offers a lyrical topography of the southern—and of the American—spirit that is inviting, entertaining, always surprising, and sometimes ominous. Far from being of merely regional interest, Locales demonstrates that there is no place, however small or remote or obscure, that cannot call forth a resonant outcry of the heart.

Poems from the Fellowship of Southern Writers

Locales

The Lost Carnival

H. P. Lovecraft

Laird Barron

Clark Ashton Smith

Victor LaValle

Michael Cisco

Livia Llewellyn

Nadia Bulkin

Molly Tanzer

Erica L. Satifka

Masahiko Inoue

Inspired by the Lovecraft's more optimistic writings, this unique collection spotlights the weird works of nine current horror and fantasy authors, including the award-winning Michael Cisco and Livia Llewellyn. Also includes Clark Ashton Smith's 1931 "The City of the Singing Flame" and Lovecraft's own "The Shadow Over Innsmouth."

Fred Chappell

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