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Chinaberry
Anson Winters, triste, tormentato, ma sicuro di sé; la sua premurosa e tenera moglie, Lurie; Ernest Roughton, a cui è affidato il narratore, onesto e solido; i Cretini, due amici inseparabili che non amano altro che una buona burla (parenti letterari di Harl e Tibb Logan, i cugini burloni di Fiume di Terra).
Ma Chinaberry non è solo l’infanzia del narratore, è la sua memoria, il dolore e la gioia, perché ciascuno di noi ha il suo Chinaberry. Un albero duro e resistente, un estraneo in una terra straniera, portato negli Stati Uniti dall’Asia, proprio come il ragazzo viene portato dall’Alabama al Texas.
Chinaberry è un’ode alla voluttà della narrazione: nelle sue pagine incontriamo una miriade di personaggi, anche morti e scomparsi e di cui solo si parla. E tutti questi fili narrativi vengono intrecciati attraverso le storie raccontate dai personaggi della fattoria, sia che si tratti dei sommessi ricordi di Lurie mentre mangia con il narratore sotto gli alberi di Chinaberry o delle storie che Anson narra in modo chiassoso sul dondolo durante una calda notte estiva.
Ma Chinaberry non è solo l’infanzia del narratore, è la sua memoria, il dolore e la gioia, perché ciascuno di noi ha il suo Chinaberry. Un albero duro e resistente, un estraneo in una terra straniera, portato negli Stati Uniti dall’Asia, proprio come il ragazzo viene portato dall’Alabama al Texas.
Chinaberry è un’ode alla voluttà della narrazione: nelle sue pagine incontriamo una miriade di personaggi, anche morti e scomparsi e di cui solo si parla. E tutti questi fili narrativi vengono intrecciati attraverso le storie raccontate dai personaggi della fattoria, sia che si tratti dei sommessi ricordi di Lurie mentre mangia con il narratore sotto gli alberi di Chinaberry o delle storie che Anson narra in modo chiassoso sul dondolo durante una calda notte estiva.
178 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
6 people are currently reading
304 people want to read
About the author
James Still
35 books42 followersFor the American playwright, see James Still.
James Still (July 16, 1906 – April 28, 2001) was an Appalachian poet, novelist and folklorist. He lived most of his life in a log house along the Dead Mare Branch of Little Carr Creek, Knott County, Kentucky. He was best known for the novel River of Earth, which depicted the struggles of coal mining in eastern Kentucky.
Still’s mother was sixteen when she moved to Alabama due to a tornado destroying the family home. His father was a horse doctor with no formal training. James Still was born July 16, 1906 near Lafayette, Chambers County, Alabama. Still was considered a quiet child but a hard worker. He along with his nine siblings worked the family farm. They farmed cotton, sugar cane, soybeans and corn. At the age of seven, Still began grade school. He found greater interest not in the school text books but at home where there was an edition of the Cyclopedia of Universal Knowledge. He became enriched with philosophy, physics and the great British poets – Shakespeare and Keats.
After graduating from high school, Still attended Lincoln Memorial University of Harrogate, Tennessee. He worked at the rock quarry in the afternoons and as a library janitor in the evenings. He would often sleep at the library after spending the night reading countless literature. In 1929, he graduated from Lincoln and headed over to Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. While there, he became involved in a controversial miner strike in Wilder, Tennessee. The miners were starving due to holding the picket line; Still delivered a truckload of food and clothing for the miners. After a year at Vanderbilt, he transferred to the University of Illinois and earned a graduate degree.
Still tried various professions including the Civil Service Corps, Bible salesman and even had a stint picking cotton in Texas. His friend Don West – a poet, civil rights activist, among other things – offered Still a job organizing recreation programs for a Bible school in Knott County, Kentucky. Still accepted the position but soon became a volunteer librarian at the Hindman Settlement School. Knott County, would become Still’s lifelong home.
James Still served as a Sergeant in the US Army in WWII and was stationed in Egypt in 1944.
Still moved into a two-story log house once occupied by a fine crafter of dulcimers, Jethro Amburgey. He would remain here till his death. Here, he began writing his masterpiece, River of Earth. It was published February 5, 1940. River of Earth depicts the struggles of a family trying to survive by either subsisting off the land or entering the coal mines of the Cumberland Plateau in the reaches of eastern Kentucky. Still depicts the Appalachian mining culture with ease. Mines close often and the family is forced to move and find other means to survive. Still received the Southern Author's Award shortly after publication which he shared with Thomas Wolfe for his work You Can’t Go Home Again. Still went on to publish a few collections of poetry and short stories, a juvenile novel and a compilation of Appalachian local color he collected over the years. The children's book "Jack and the Wonderbeans" was adapted for the stage by the Lexington Children's Theatre in 1992. Still participated in one performance, reading a portion of the book to open the show. He died April 28, 2001 at the age of 94.
James Still (July 16, 1906 – April 28, 2001) was an Appalachian poet, novelist and folklorist. He lived most of his life in a log house along the Dead Mare Branch of Little Carr Creek, Knott County, Kentucky. He was best known for the novel River of Earth, which depicted the struggles of coal mining in eastern Kentucky.
Still’s mother was sixteen when she moved to Alabama due to a tornado destroying the family home. His father was a horse doctor with no formal training. James Still was born July 16, 1906 near Lafayette, Chambers County, Alabama. Still was considered a quiet child but a hard worker. He along with his nine siblings worked the family farm. They farmed cotton, sugar cane, soybeans and corn. At the age of seven, Still began grade school. He found greater interest not in the school text books but at home where there was an edition of the Cyclopedia of Universal Knowledge. He became enriched with philosophy, physics and the great British poets – Shakespeare and Keats.
After graduating from high school, Still attended Lincoln Memorial University of Harrogate, Tennessee. He worked at the rock quarry in the afternoons and as a library janitor in the evenings. He would often sleep at the library after spending the night reading countless literature. In 1929, he graduated from Lincoln and headed over to Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. While there, he became involved in a controversial miner strike in Wilder, Tennessee. The miners were starving due to holding the picket line; Still delivered a truckload of food and clothing for the miners. After a year at Vanderbilt, he transferred to the University of Illinois and earned a graduate degree.
Still tried various professions including the Civil Service Corps, Bible salesman and even had a stint picking cotton in Texas. His friend Don West – a poet, civil rights activist, among other things – offered Still a job organizing recreation programs for a Bible school in Knott County, Kentucky. Still accepted the position but soon became a volunteer librarian at the Hindman Settlement School. Knott County, would become Still’s lifelong home.
James Still served as a Sergeant in the US Army in WWII and was stationed in Egypt in 1944.
Still moved into a two-story log house once occupied by a fine crafter of dulcimers, Jethro Amburgey. He would remain here till his death. Here, he began writing his masterpiece, River of Earth. It was published February 5, 1940. River of Earth depicts the struggles of a family trying to survive by either subsisting off the land or entering the coal mines of the Cumberland Plateau in the reaches of eastern Kentucky. Still depicts the Appalachian mining culture with ease. Mines close often and the family is forced to move and find other means to survive. Still received the Southern Author's Award shortly after publication which he shared with Thomas Wolfe for his work You Can’t Go Home Again. Still went on to publish a few collections of poetry and short stories, a juvenile novel and a compilation of Appalachian local color he collected over the years. The children's book "Jack and the Wonderbeans" was adapted for the stage by the Lexington Children's Theatre in 1992. Still participated in one performance, reading a portion of the book to open the show. He died April 28, 2001 at the age of 94.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
April 1, 2012
I can believe that this book meant a lot to James Still, even though it remained unfinished at his death. The plot is simple really, but the story is not. I read River of Earth recently, and though that book was set closer to my Appalachia, this tale set in Texas feels even more familiar to me, or at least to my memories of my elders' memories. And that's what Chinaberry is all about. I wish Still was here to answer all the questions he left with this story, but maybe that's exactly why he never finished it in his lifetime; now he can leave the answers to us.
June 15, 2016
I hesitate to say this, for fear of sounding like a teenager... but this story is so weird!
beautifully written- but awkwardly caught somewhere between an expression of grief, and a social services home visit report.
I'm interested to see what stands out in my memory about this story years from now.
beautifully written- but awkwardly caught somewhere between an expression of grief, and a social services home visit report.
I'm interested to see what stands out in my memory about this story years from now.
June 18, 2012
Maybe a little partial to Still as he choose Kentucky in which to live and work. If Chinaberry is indeed "creatively" autobiographical as critics suggest, I would certainly like to read a full autobiography. Poignant quote: "I never saw them again, I grew up; I remembered."
July 24, 2012
This is one of those books whose imperfections only make it more beautiful. The nearly-proverbial novel in a briefcase. Thank you, Silas House.
August 6, 2020
Another disappointment. After hearing so many positive reviews of James Still's work, I found this story disturbing. There were moments of sheer genius in turn of phrase, but overall the story is about a very unhealthy relationship between a boy and two adults who desperately want him to be their son.
He has a family, but that doesn't seem to matter. The man, Anson, lost his first wife in childbirth and then has a very sick baby son who he devotes every waking moment of the six years of the child's life, attempting to keep the boy alive. When Jim arrives, he is called "the baby" and treated just like he is only six, though he is actually thirteen. His wife Lurie shares many facts about their lives with Jim and the story then is told by a thirteen-year-old boy who is given knowledge of the lives of others which he shares openly with the reader (and actually calls the reader "you" once!) One minute he is being washed and dressed and coddled, and the next he is telling about the history of Anson and his first loves, and how Lurie was his "third choice" for a life partner...all very adult themes. The book repeats mundane events of their everyday lives. Jim is homesick for his family, but then when it is time to leave, he grabs Anson's legs and cries out "I won't go!" There was so much I couldn't come to terms with in this book! And overall, the hardest part to accept may be the fact that it is largely autobiographical. That is not said by the author, James Still, but much of it is inferred. It follows the events of his own childhood by his short stay in Texas and other hints that there is some truth to the tale. Just not what I was expecting from a man who is considered a classic Southern writer.
He has a family, but that doesn't seem to matter. The man, Anson, lost his first wife in childbirth and then has a very sick baby son who he devotes every waking moment of the six years of the child's life, attempting to keep the boy alive. When Jim arrives, he is called "the baby" and treated just like he is only six, though he is actually thirteen. His wife Lurie shares many facts about their lives with Jim and the story then is told by a thirteen-year-old boy who is given knowledge of the lives of others which he shares openly with the reader (and actually calls the reader "you" once!) One minute he is being washed and dressed and coddled, and the next he is telling about the history of Anson and his first loves, and how Lurie was his "third choice" for a life partner...all very adult themes. The book repeats mundane events of their everyday lives. Jim is homesick for his family, but then when it is time to leave, he grabs Anson's legs and cries out "I won't go!" There was so much I couldn't come to terms with in this book! And overall, the hardest part to accept may be the fact that it is largely autobiographical. That is not said by the author, James Still, but much of it is inferred. It follows the events of his own childhood by his short stay in Texas and other hints that there is some truth to the tale. Just not what I was expecting from a man who is considered a classic Southern writer.
August 26, 2011
Chinaberry by James Still
Berea: University of Kentucky Press
$21.95 - 153 pages
I never picked cotton,
but my mother did,
And my brothers did,
And my sisters did,
And my father died young,
workin’ in the coal mines.
-Roy Clark, “I Never Picked Cotton”
When I was a child riding the back roads of western North Carolina with my grandfather in his big red Esso truck, he used to point out abandoned farms to me. Many of barns and houses were branded with the three letters GTT. “That means gone to Texas,” my grandfather told me. He added that many times the former owners were not really in Texas, but in High Point or in some distant place on the west coast called Sedro Woolley, but people tended to used GTT anyway since it had become a familiar way of saying, “I’ve had enough.”
In the wake of the depression and the dust bowl, poor farmers in the Southeastern United States often heard rumors of fertile lands and rich timber reserves in the east. Some of the cautious ones, reluctant to abandon the “old home place” often sent a family member to investigate.
In a sense that is what happens with Jim, the “going on thirteen” narrator of Chinaberry, who leaves Alabama with Ernest, a friend of the family and two local teenagers referred to as “the knuckleheads.” They hope to find steady work in Texas and report back to their friends and family in Alabama on such essentials as stable employment, the quality of the water, the food and the climate.
Although the water turned out to be pretty bad, Jim, Ernest and the knuckleheads blunder into employment with a wealthy landowner named Anson Winters who raises cotton and cattle. Jim thinks that he will spend the summer dragging a cotton sack through the tropical Texas heat with hundreds of other pickers. However, while the boy is ruefully considering the shimmering heat and the soul-killing labor awaiting him, a remarkable event occurs. After picking cotton for only a few hours, Anson Winters suddenly informs Jim that he will be living with him and his wife, Lurie in a place called Chinaberry. Jim never picks cotton again.
In many ways, Chinaberry, reads like a coming of age fable. Although Jim finds himself transported from poverty and primitive living conditions to a pampered life in a modern home where a doting couple strive to satisfy his every whim, he is homesick. Even as he becomes accustomed to clean clothes and a daily bath, he still watches the mail box, hoping for news from home. Within a short time, he is gaining weight and is spending most of his waking hours with his surrogate father, Anson Winters. Gradually, he learns why Anson Winters is so protective.
Several years prior to Jim’s arrival in Chinaberry, Anson had lost his wife Melba, who died in childbirth. This tragedy was followed by another devastating blow: The death of Johannes, Anson’s afflicted son who had died at the age of six despite his father’s heroic efforts to keep the boy alive. Gradually, Jim comes to understand that both he and Lurie are surrogates and that Anson intends to spend the rest of his life striving to protect his wife and “his new son” from real and imagined dangers. Of course, it is an impossible task.
The story of Anson Winters’ struggle to keep his loved ones from harm is heartrending. Especially affecting is the section that recounts the tortured father’s daily routine, riding with Johannes cradled in his arms and fresh diapers in his saddlebags. Repeatedly, when the ailing child has seizures and ceases to breath, Anson forces breath back into his lungs and revives him. When Johannes finally dies, Anson attempts suicide several times. Jim also discovers that there are locked rooms in the house which contains the belongings of Johannes and Melba - a kind of memorial to a dead wife and son. It becomes obvious that Anson’s attempt to “resurrect” his family are doomed to failure ... but then, life sometimes provides its own alternative .... which is what happens here.
However, as affecting as the story of Anson Winters is, Chinaberry’s greatest merit is James Still’s ability to capture the essence of a world that no longer exists. Jim’s trek from Chambers County, Alabama to Chinaberry, Texas resonates with vital details. It is a different world - one where women “wear out like a cake of soap,” as they struggled with the common tasks of life. In Texas, Jim encounters washing machines powered by gasoline engines, marvels at the size of Texas jack rabbits and the fact that antelope often graze with the cattle. Jim ponders the immensity of a place that is “more sky than earth.” Although he is plagued by the ubiquitous ticks and fleas (just like those in Alabama), he learns to treat his bits with Cloverine Salve. He adjusts to a humid world where everyone’s hands grasp fans as they eat and/or sit on their porches,and he becomes accustomed to telephones that utilize operators who live at home - and everyone listens to everyone else’s phone conversations. On summer nights, the people living in and near Chinaberry are troubled by cyclones and tornados. Summers bring epidemics of Rocky Mountain fever.
Although there is a tendency to comment on the “autobiographical content” in Chinaberry, there seems to be very little justification for that. James Still did not spend a summer in Texas when he was thirteen, although he did make a rapid trip there when he was in his 20’s. For readers like me who have always admired Still, I responded to this little
novel as a kind of fantasy “with ticks and chiggers.” As numerous other
Southern writers have noted, the story contained here “could have happened.” Jim’s journey has much to do with the way that James Still defined home. Is it a place or people? Perhaps it resides in the heart.
(Shortly after James Still’s death in 2001, a number of his close friends began putting together some of the author’s unpublished works. Among his papers, they found the unpublished manuscript for Chinaberry. Another Kentucky writer, Silas House assumed responsibility for getting this work published.
Berea: University of Kentucky Press
$21.95 - 153 pages
I never picked cotton,
but my mother did,
And my brothers did,
And my sisters did,
And my father died young,
workin’ in the coal mines.
-Roy Clark, “I Never Picked Cotton”
When I was a child riding the back roads of western North Carolina with my grandfather in his big red Esso truck, he used to point out abandoned farms to me. Many of barns and houses were branded with the three letters GTT. “That means gone to Texas,” my grandfather told me. He added that many times the former owners were not really in Texas, but in High Point or in some distant place on the west coast called Sedro Woolley, but people tended to used GTT anyway since it had become a familiar way of saying, “I’ve had enough.”
In the wake of the depression and the dust bowl, poor farmers in the Southeastern United States often heard rumors of fertile lands and rich timber reserves in the east. Some of the cautious ones, reluctant to abandon the “old home place” often sent a family member to investigate.
In a sense that is what happens with Jim, the “going on thirteen” narrator of Chinaberry, who leaves Alabama with Ernest, a friend of the family and two local teenagers referred to as “the knuckleheads.” They hope to find steady work in Texas and report back to their friends and family in Alabama on such essentials as stable employment, the quality of the water, the food and the climate.
Although the water turned out to be pretty bad, Jim, Ernest and the knuckleheads blunder into employment with a wealthy landowner named Anson Winters who raises cotton and cattle. Jim thinks that he will spend the summer dragging a cotton sack through the tropical Texas heat with hundreds of other pickers. However, while the boy is ruefully considering the shimmering heat and the soul-killing labor awaiting him, a remarkable event occurs. After picking cotton for only a few hours, Anson Winters suddenly informs Jim that he will be living with him and his wife, Lurie in a place called Chinaberry. Jim never picks cotton again.
In many ways, Chinaberry, reads like a coming of age fable. Although Jim finds himself transported from poverty and primitive living conditions to a pampered life in a modern home where a doting couple strive to satisfy his every whim, he is homesick. Even as he becomes accustomed to clean clothes and a daily bath, he still watches the mail box, hoping for news from home. Within a short time, he is gaining weight and is spending most of his waking hours with his surrogate father, Anson Winters. Gradually, he learns why Anson Winters is so protective.
Several years prior to Jim’s arrival in Chinaberry, Anson had lost his wife Melba, who died in childbirth. This tragedy was followed by another devastating blow: The death of Johannes, Anson’s afflicted son who had died at the age of six despite his father’s heroic efforts to keep the boy alive. Gradually, Jim comes to understand that both he and Lurie are surrogates and that Anson intends to spend the rest of his life striving to protect his wife and “his new son” from real and imagined dangers. Of course, it is an impossible task.
The story of Anson Winters’ struggle to keep his loved ones from harm is heartrending. Especially affecting is the section that recounts the tortured father’s daily routine, riding with Johannes cradled in his arms and fresh diapers in his saddlebags. Repeatedly, when the ailing child has seizures and ceases to breath, Anson forces breath back into his lungs and revives him. When Johannes finally dies, Anson attempts suicide several times. Jim also discovers that there are locked rooms in the house which contains the belongings of Johannes and Melba - a kind of memorial to a dead wife and son. It becomes obvious that Anson’s attempt to “resurrect” his family are doomed to failure ... but then, life sometimes provides its own alternative .... which is what happens here.
However, as affecting as the story of Anson Winters is, Chinaberry’s greatest merit is James Still’s ability to capture the essence of a world that no longer exists. Jim’s trek from Chambers County, Alabama to Chinaberry, Texas resonates with vital details. It is a different world - one where women “wear out like a cake of soap,” as they struggled with the common tasks of life. In Texas, Jim encounters washing machines powered by gasoline engines, marvels at the size of Texas jack rabbits and the fact that antelope often graze with the cattle. Jim ponders the immensity of a place that is “more sky than earth.” Although he is plagued by the ubiquitous ticks and fleas (just like those in Alabama), he learns to treat his bits with Cloverine Salve. He adjusts to a humid world where everyone’s hands grasp fans as they eat and/or sit on their porches,and he becomes accustomed to telephones that utilize operators who live at home - and everyone listens to everyone else’s phone conversations. On summer nights, the people living in and near Chinaberry are troubled by cyclones and tornados. Summers bring epidemics of Rocky Mountain fever.
Although there is a tendency to comment on the “autobiographical content” in Chinaberry, there seems to be very little justification for that. James Still did not spend a summer in Texas when he was thirteen, although he did make a rapid trip there when he was in his 20’s. For readers like me who have always admired Still, I responded to this little
novel as a kind of fantasy “with ticks and chiggers.” As numerous other
Southern writers have noted, the story contained here “could have happened.” Jim’s journey has much to do with the way that James Still defined home. Is it a place or people? Perhaps it resides in the heart.
(Shortly after James Still’s death in 2001, a number of his close friends began putting together some of the author’s unpublished works. Among his papers, they found the unpublished manuscript for Chinaberry. Another Kentucky writer, Silas House assumed responsibility for getting this work published.
October 22, 2019
I want to like this book. The descriptions of landscapes and the natural world are incredible. I can picture all the scenes Still creates. I guess that’s the power of words, to create.
I felt uncomfortable reading this at some points. I wondered if there was abuse or manipulation at the heart of the story. But now that I’ve finished reading, I wonder if my discomfort was unfounded and the characters are all just complicated. I don’t know. It is possible to be pure of heart and wrong at times, I believe. I think of someone from my own childhood, who I held in high esteem, but who was also shrewd and difficult and sometimes held wrong views. But I knew he loved me as a grandparent would and that made his flaws disappear at times for me. Maybe that happens here, between the boy and Anson.
This story has made me think. And it’s made me want to learn more about James Still. I’m glad I read it.
I felt uncomfortable reading this at some points. I wondered if there was abuse or manipulation at the heart of the story. But now that I’ve finished reading, I wonder if my discomfort was unfounded and the characters are all just complicated. I don’t know. It is possible to be pure of heart and wrong at times, I believe. I think of someone from my own childhood, who I held in high esteem, but who was also shrewd and difficult and sometimes held wrong views. But I knew he loved me as a grandparent would and that made his flaws disappear at times for me. Maybe that happens here, between the boy and Anson.
This story has made me think. And it’s made me want to learn more about James Still. I’m glad I read it.
January 20, 2019
My grandfather relished any opportunity to reminisce about the time he spent in his youth at what he referred to as the Haner Place. To him in his memories, it was a special place and time. Chinaberry is James Still's Haner Place. This short novel tells the story of a 13 year old boy who accompanies several Alabama men on an extended trip to Texas in the early part of the 20th century. Much of the story revolves around a childless couple who own a large range and take a special interest in the boy. Despite a certain creepy factor in their doting, the writing is concise and lyrical, capturing the time and place and the way memories of youth seem idyllic. I suppose everyone has a Chinaberry or Haner Place in their past.
April 24, 2021
Still's unfinished manuscript which is the basis of "Chinaberry" has been edited by Silas House (author of the stunning "A Parchment of Leaves"). I wanted to see what came out of this partnership. Here's a quirky, brief tale about a boy whose life is interrupted when he is taken in by a grieving Texas rancher and his wife. It is an unsettling fairy tale more than a coming of age story. The thirteen year old boy is treated kindly but like a much younger child- an infant even- as his "Dad-o" soothes himself through this fostered boy's presence following the death of his own son. In "Chinaberry" you live the day-to-day life of the east Texas rancher and cotton farmer in the early 1920s. A glimpse at a life and a time and place, but with an incomplete feel.
April 18, 2019
This book made me incredibly uncomfortable, and I regret reading it. It is billed as a coming-of-age story, but I didn't see that at all. The main character doesn't really develop at all. Anson's behavior towards the boy is inappropriate. Even though we're supposed to feel bad for him because of his grief, I have no sympathy for Anson because his relationships with people outside of his family are all inappropriate.
January 26, 2022
I loved this novel. Reading the introduction and post-discussion really made the book for me as well. Having Silas House's comments and those of Carol Boggess provided context and meaning. Knowing Mr. Still had this book with him and had been working on it around the time of his death and that it would be finished by another wonderful Kentucky writer is really special.
October 21, 2018
A beautiful book too long in the making. But House takes Still's story and gently lays it before us. The story reads as so many are told -- first with a sketch, followed by additions of color and texture.
August 9, 2020
This is a story about a boy who lives in Texas for several months being given special attention by a wealthy man who had lost his only child. It describes a Texas where cotton and cattle were raised and where the landscape was more than half sky.
February 26, 2025
Didn’t listen to the earlier reviews stating that this book is a little weird and thought to myself, well how weird could it be? Not that bad but a little inappropriate at times. Other than that I really enjoyed the book.
July 24, 2018
Love it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 14, 2020
Something very soothing and rest full in this writing. A quick old American tale of coming of age.
November 10, 2021
Pura emozione.
October 26, 2022
I enjoy the poetic writing of James Still. The story was strangely uncomfortable, but it all made more sense in the end.
June 24, 2025
a book about finding yourself.
A great book about a young man yearning for something better than home but realizes home is where he belongs.
A great book about a young man yearning for something better than home but realizes home is where he belongs.
June 16, 2023
It was a quick read and basically a feel good story. I felt that it didn’t really go anywhere.
March 19, 2013
One seminal summer on a Texas ranch called "Chinaberry" an undersized thirteen year old boy's existence changes everything for the remarkable rancher Anson and his lovely wife Lurie.
I read this book in an evening during a week when I was listening to an audio recording of Heidi by Spyri. Surprisingly, there are some corollaries between the two stories. Both characters embark upon a journey, crossing a threshold which separates them from all that was safe or familiar to them. In Heidi's case, it is when her aunt takes her up the alp. In the boy's case, it is when he gets in a car with his father's friend and two teenagers whose aim it is to leave Alabama and find work picking cotton in Texas.
The adventure begins and a helper arrives. In Heidi's case it is her grandfather, better known as the feared Alm Uncle. In the boy's case it is the grieving rancher Anson.
What prize is gained along the way? Both young people profoundly influence the lives of these larger-than-life protectors and both children step into the arena of their young adult years marked with a deeper understanding of and sympathy for human suffering, forgiveness, faith, and hope. Indeed, their lives are forever changed, for they have been part and parcel to a balm of Gilead.
(See http://rule-of-the-universe.blogspot.... in the "Joseph's Story" post for a more complete--albeit novice--application of the Grand Argument Story Mind model).
The prose and poetry of the author approach that of Harper Lee. More an exercise in character sketch than story, there are elements both haunting and lyrical. The reader will encounter wonder, patience, love, and redemption.
So, why just two stars? It simply wasn't the story for me!
I read this book in an evening during a week when I was listening to an audio recording of Heidi by Spyri. Surprisingly, there are some corollaries between the two stories. Both characters embark upon a journey, crossing a threshold which separates them from all that was safe or familiar to them. In Heidi's case, it is when her aunt takes her up the alp. In the boy's case, it is when he gets in a car with his father's friend and two teenagers whose aim it is to leave Alabama and find work picking cotton in Texas.
The adventure begins and a helper arrives. In Heidi's case it is her grandfather, better known as the feared Alm Uncle. In the boy's case it is the grieving rancher Anson.
What prize is gained along the way? Both young people profoundly influence the lives of these larger-than-life protectors and both children step into the arena of their young adult years marked with a deeper understanding of and sympathy for human suffering, forgiveness, faith, and hope. Indeed, their lives are forever changed, for they have been part and parcel to a balm of Gilead.
(See http://rule-of-the-universe.blogspot.... in the "Joseph's Story" post for a more complete--albeit novice--application of the Grand Argument Story Mind model).
The prose and poetry of the author approach that of Harper Lee. More an exercise in character sketch than story, there are elements both haunting and lyrical. The reader will encounter wonder, patience, love, and redemption.
So, why just two stars? It simply wasn't the story for me!
January 13, 2016
Chinaberry didn't hit me in the same way River of Earth did, but that's not something to be held against it. If anything, Chinaberry will haunt me more than any other Still work.
Within Chinaberry James Still crafts a rather simple story about an Alabama boy travelling to Texas to work on a ranch, but there are so many little things that give you an uneasy feeling as you go along. At the same time, it's a book about love in many ways, from man and woman to man and child to man and childhood.
I should clarify that when I say "uneasy" i'm not talking about McCarthy levels of strange, but there are unusual occurrences and encounters that make you raise an eyebrow. Overall, the book is simply beautiful.
The manuscript was left incomplete by Still, but Silas House makes an admirable attempt to reign in this beast of a manuscript. Dedicated James Still readers will be able to tell what comes from Still and what was placed by House, although the original manuscript was nearly complete it did need editing and doesn't exactly follow conventions that Still used in works such as River of Earth .
Will all that said, it's an incredible, haunting book. If you're interested in Appalachian literature or James Still in general, take the time to read it. You won't be disappointed, but you will have more questions than answers by the end. That part of Still's works, even with House's editing, is completely intact.
Within Chinaberry James Still crafts a rather simple story about an Alabama boy travelling to Texas to work on a ranch, but there are so many little things that give you an uneasy feeling as you go along. At the same time, it's a book about love in many ways, from man and woman to man and child to man and childhood.
I should clarify that when I say "uneasy" i'm not talking about McCarthy levels of strange, but there are unusual occurrences and encounters that make you raise an eyebrow. Overall, the book is simply beautiful.
The manuscript was left incomplete by Still, but Silas House makes an admirable attempt to reign in this beast of a manuscript. Dedicated James Still readers will be able to tell what comes from Still and what was placed by House, although the original manuscript was nearly complete it did need editing and doesn't exactly follow conventions that Still used in works such as River of Earth .
Will all that said, it's an incredible, haunting book. If you're interested in Appalachian literature or James Still in general, take the time to read it. You won't be disappointed, but you will have more questions than answers by the end. That part of Still's works, even with House's editing, is completely intact.
March 22, 2012
Chinaberry is a lovely novel, as are all of James Still's works - beautifully worded and imagined. The story here is spare but important. What do you remember as real from your childhood? Are you actually recalling reality? Or are you creating a recollection based on a combination of other people's stories, your own hopes and desires, and collections of black and white photos? That's the unspoken part, hinted at in the opening quotes and the story itself, a little tale of a summer in the life of a child and a family that needs one. It's interesting that everything is told in memory, from the boy's own story of that summer and his stay at Chinaberry to his knowledge of all the other main characters. Nearly everyone is recalling stories for the boy through a soft-focus lens of love or via the telephone tree of gossip. How much is factual, and does it matter? And how reliable is the boy's memory, really? Is he making it what he wants it to be? (And is the boy Still?) Again, does it matter? There's a lot in that phrase: "I grew up; I remembered." If you read it, do not skip the Preface or Afterward. They are vital.
May 20, 2011
A wonderful set of mysteries by James Still. A life story or the fantasy of a hurt young boy? His stay with Anson and Lurie is the perfect life a boy of thirteen might dream up to cope with his feeling of displacement in his own family to a younger sibling.
The characters are believable-except for the boy. What 13 year old would allow himself to be pampered and used as he was by Anson? He let himself be the baby in the family-the place he missed in his real family. After all, he was handpicked by Anson. And the only child. Their relationship seems unnatural-not normal. Not believable to me.
I think Still used facts from his own life to make his fantasy of "his ideal place in a family" seem real.
The characters are believable-except for the boy. What 13 year old would allow himself to be pampered and used as he was by Anson? He let himself be the baby in the family-the place he missed in his real family. After all, he was handpicked by Anson. And the only child. Their relationship seems unnatural-not normal. Not believable to me.
I think Still used facts from his own life to make his fantasy of "his ideal place in a family" seem real.
April 13, 2011
My friend from KY sent this for me to read - James Still was a Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction from KY, and this was an unfinished manuscript about a young boy's trip to Texas when a young teenager, which seems to be pretty autobiographical. The writing was good; great imagery, but that's not my favorite criteria for a great book, thus the 3 stars. A good book for the older set or those who love historical fiction.
September 28, 2011
Small book with big impact. Loved the exploration of relationships and tension among the characters. Found myself thinking about the book long after I had finished reading it. Chinaberry is one of those books you really need to talk about after reading it.
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February 6, 2013Silas House was the editor of the book that I read, and completely captured James Still's descriptive writing. I enjoyed the book very much.
March 3, 2013
Wondrous, unflinching look at human nature.
February 25, 2015
This book was o.k.
April 15, 2017
This is a beautiful sketch of a few memorable months in a young boy's life.
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