Stand By Me

by Wendell Berry

As in thought he passes backward into time, the country becomes quieter, and it seems to grow larger. The sounds of engines become less frequent and farther apart until they cease altogether.

On a clear Kentucky night in 1888, a young woman risks her life to save a stranger from a drunken mob. Almost a hundred years later, her great-grandson Andy climbs a hill at the edge of town, and is flooded with memories of all he has lived, seen and heard of the past century of neighbourly feuds and family secrets; of grief and betrayal - and of great friendship that endures for a lifetime.

Wendell Berry unravels the story of a town over the course of four generations, lovingly chronicling the intertwined lives of the families who call it home. Affectionate, elegiac and wry, these uplifting rural fables invite us to witness the beauty and quiet heroism at the heart of each ordinary, interconnected life.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Literature, Poetry, American

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Wendell Berry is a conservationist, farmer, essayist, novelist, professor of English and poet. He was born August 5, 1934 in Henry County, Kentucky where he now lives on a farm. The New York Times has called Berry the "prophet of rural America."

Reviews

[Maureen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’d never heard of author Wendell Berry until recently, but if this short story is anything to go by, then I’ve certainly been missing out.

"For a while I couldn’t bring myself to trap the mice, I so needed to have something living there besides me."

“What gets you is the knowledge, that sometimes can fall on you in a clap, that the dead are gone absolutely from this world. As has been said around here over and over again, you are not going to see them here anymore, ever. Whatever was done or said before is done or said for good. Any questions you think you ought to’ve asked while you had a chance are never going to be answered. The dead know, and you don’t”.

How sad those statements are, but this beautifully written little story gives a portrayal of family, love, loss, grief, and what mechanisms are used to try and overcome that all encompassing loss.

I can give this stunningly beautiful story nothing less than 5 stars. Just wonderful!

[Gaurav Sagar · Rating 4 out of 5]

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What is it to be human
Is it to cry over the death
or to celebrate the birth.
Is it to exult over reaps
or to rue over loss.
Is it to be sad
or to fly with joy.
Is it to love with passion or be loved with grace
or to burn with hate.
Is it to pause when one can move
or to move on despite halt.
Is it to be dead despite life
or to be alive despite everything.
Is it nothing
or it is everything.



There are a few authors who I have been planning to read for a while but could not do as the opportunity and chance could not intersect on the space-time thread. Wendell Berry has been one of such authors who I could not get the opportune prospect to indulge myself in their worlds. I have read a lot of eulogies about him, about the ability of his prose to pull you inside his world once you read it but never got the actual occasion to have a first-hand experience of his prose, though I have a few titles by him but the sheer length of his books dissuaded me, time and again. Yesterday, due to divine crossover of chance and opportunity, I got fortunate enough to come across a review of the story- Stand By Me, courtesy to my Goodreads friend- Cheri. I immediately pounced upon it and grab the moment with both hands, the length of the story might have also played an imbecile part in it. I read it in the darkness of night, so quiet and still that I could hear the silence itself, and to my utter surprise, I did not regret even a bit of it.


The story starts with a beaming stillness which you may feel through the text as if you are there with the characters of the story and enduring the numbness of their existence through your heart. We see the typical scene of rural America, with a farmer family trying to brave through existence with their sons. Unfortunately, the mother succumbs to the vagaries of life, a role later taken up by the brother-Burley-of the father-Jarrat. Life goes on as in any family, but we get the chance to see the developing years of the sons- Tom and Nathan- through the eyes of Burley, the narrator hidden as a character of the story. The readers come across a very closely-knit family of a typical rural farm, wherein though the father remains preoccupied with the demands of job and life, the uncle of the children takes upon himself to rear the children with the help of the grandparents. While Jarrat remains mostly oblivious to the demands of parenting, the boys find the comforting and compassionate support, much required in childhood, from their uncle.


The story beautifully touches upon the problem of adolescence as we see through the life of the elder son-Tom, the problem which is not helped either by the attitude of his father. He creates a life of his own far from the shadow of his father, in a respectful and commanding way. Work remains like a consolation to Jarrat, as he has been caught with the fever of work most of his life like he has some sort of gift for it. The wheel of time rolls on and there comes World War II. We know that any war demands sacrifices and this is not an exception either. The seemingly normal story of rural America takes an abrupt turn and the home of the family gets filled with deafening silence which could be heard by the reader, loud and clear.



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The text of the story is simple, in the sense that the narrative is not constrained through adjectives or long sentences, which may demand great patience and attention from the reader but it flows like a river of clear and strong emotions, filled with a strange sense of profound sadness which pulls you into the story once you start reading it. The author has been able to create an intense spell of sensations around his readers who may watch and feel the loneliness of the characters of the story with empathy and compassion which might even roll down from their eyes in the form of salty water. Most of the story surrounds the reader with complete stillness since it makes you numb so much so that you can hear your heartbeats. It is a great tale of compassion, loss, and bereavement, through which the characters of the story brave through.


Though the story neither raises questions nor gives answers to any, in a sense that it never gets preachy but what it can do, it may show and make feel you most of the emotions human life comprises of. The reader may get the taste of regrets, penitence, endless contemplations, and rues of life as if he is thinking about his own life, for such is the power of the prose of the author.


The short story encapsulates perfectly how we behave over the death and loss of our loved ones. We see that a deep melancholy pervades the world of Berry over the common facets of life. Death has been an enigma to humankind and becomes more so when we deal with the demise of someone we love. The emptiness we feel in our lives over the loss of that someone is hard to be expressed in words, however, the author has been bravely able to make you hear and feel that. But you don’t feel the bitterness in his story, what you feel that the story is in every way full of life- the joy.


The main theme of the story is the eternity of life despite it being a sad story, as the narrator contemplates that one can’t stop just because one is carrying a burden of grief. The world is a dynamic place and it has to move on, no matter what, the questions life asks us will keep on asking, whatever may be the circumstances. Though we may require necessary evils such as hope to move if we are not absurd like Camus used to say. The story is a great portrayal of human existence- how we behave in life, how we carry on ourselves despite everything, in other words, all that is to be human.

It was maybe the animals most of all that kept us going, the good animals we depended on, that depended on us: our work mules, the cattle, the sheep, the hogs, even the chickens. They were a help to us because they didn’t know our grief but just quietly lived on, suffering what they suffered, enjoying what they enjoyed, day by day. We took care of them, we did what had to be done, we went on.




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4.5/5

[Angela M · Rating 5 out of 5]

My introduction to Wendell Berry was with this beautiful, quietly told short story. It’s a stunning portrayal of grief, of love, of family, of the human heart.

I’m hooked. It’s the kind of writing that I love. I have to get to his novels.

Here’s a link to the story:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first reading I’ve done of Wendell Berry.
I loved this short story…
a story of family, loss, grief, and how a person keeps on going after loss.
I will definitely be reading some of his novels in the near future..
thank you to Angela for her review and share of the link!

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...

[Laysee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stand By Me can be found in Wendell Berry’s collection of short stories titled A Place in Time: Twenty Stories of the Port William Membership. I read it in 2015; no wonder the title of this story was vaguely familiar. My friends and friends of friends have been reading it of late, and I just have to read it again. Oh, any time is a good time to be back in Port William.

This is a story of how Burley Coulter stood by his older brother, Jarat, when grief struck the latter’s family not once but twice. Berry wrote with compassion of what it means to lose a loved one, of that permanent absence that changes one’s life forever. As I read it, my heart ached. I recognized the pain and the unfillable void. But what moved me deeply is Berry’s understanding of how bearing one another's burden can render grief more bearable.

This beautifully written story can be read here: Stand By Me

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have never encountered a writer like Wendell Berry. He can pack more into a short story than most people can put into a 500 page book. He understands the life of rural areas and of the past, but he also understands what it is to be just a human being, a member of this family that is mankind. He can hit upon feelings that are universal and you can feel a string has been plucked as if you were an old fiddle. I always seem to end reading anything he writes with tears streaming, not always because the writing is sad, sometimes just because the writing is nostalgic in a way that hurts.

His characters have life:

What I know for sure he had in his life were sorrow, stubbornness, silence, and work. Work was his consolation, surely, just because it was always there to do and because he was so good at it.

When they were little, you could always see right through Nathan. He didn’t have any more false faces than a glass of water.

His writing has humor:

“Let’s go!” he’d say. If you were at it with him and you hesitated a minute: “Let’s go! Let’s go!”
When we were young and he would say that, I’d say back to him,
Les Go’s dead and his wife’s a widder.
You be right good and you might get her.
But nobody was going to say that back to him anymore, not me, much less Nathan.

And, every word has meaning:

What gets you is the knowledge, that sometimes can fall on you in a clap, that the dead are gone absolutely from this world. As has been said around here over and over again, you are not going to see them here anymore, ever. Whatever was done or said before is done or said for good. Any questions you think you ought to’ve asked while you had a chance are never going to be answered. The dead know, and you don’t.

This story can be read for free at https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...

If you have never read Wendell Berry, don’t miss this opportunity to discover one of America’s best writers. If you have read Berry, but not this story, don’t miss this chance to sit and visit with Burley and Nathan again.

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful writing highlights this short, but in depth story about fragility and endurance of the human soul in the face of grief. I may not have found this if it weren't for my GR friends Linda and Swaroop. You friends are leading me to more Wendell Berry.

[Dem · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short story by Wendell Berry .https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...

My January Challenge for 2019 was to read 3 short stories and one Novel over 800 pages. I am not a short story reader and wanted to challenge myself to read a chosen few that I felt might convert me.
Stand by Me was one of those I chose to read free online and I enjoyed it and while my challenge hasn't converted me to short story reading, I enjoyed the ones I tried and it is great to try something new.

I find with short stories they are over before they begin and am always left wanting more however I did enjoy this particular one as I felt it had a beginning a middle and an end and I got a sense of the characters and the story and enjoyed the read. I liked the setting of this story as stories about family and farming always appeal to me.

A lovely short story and a nice one to complete my January challenge.

[PattyMacDotComma · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5★
“Jarrat was my brother, four years older than me, and I reckon I knew him as well as anybody did, which is not to say that what I knew was equal to what I didn’t know.”

That’s something we may have trouble admitting, that we really don’t know a lot about someone so close to us. But Burley manages to give us a pretty good look at his older brother.

This short story is almost a novel in scope. It takes us from the boys’ childhood to their own adulthood, through tragedies, sons/nephews, and on into their later years. Jarrat marries and has boys.

“But Jarrat was hard for his boys to get along with. He just naturally took up too much of the room they needed to grow in. He was the man in the lead, the man going away while everybody else was still coming. His way was the right way, which in fact it pret’ near always was, but he didn’t have the patience of a yearling mule.”

Wendell Berry has a particular view of the world which many people enjoy. I would say it’s idealised, but times are often tough and not everyone responds to their challenges well. Burley is loyal to a fault, a trite saying, but apt here, I think.

Loyalty and love and grief are all mixed up as are the customs of a small farming community. Berry manages to fit an awful lot into a very small space. You come away remembering a story much “bigger” than this, but then that’s the best kind of story, to me.

This was printed in The Atlantic Monthly in 2008, and you can find it here.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...

Thanks to the Goodreads Bound Together Group's monthly short story discussion for this one. They're here, if you're interested: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Connie G · Rating 5 out of 5]

"After Lettie died, He wasn't the man he was before. He got like an old terrapin. He might come out of his shell now and again to say something beyond what the day's work required: "Hello," maybe, or he would complement the weather. But if you go too close, he'd draw in again."

Burley Coulter narrates this story about his brother, Jarrat, and his two sons, Tom and Nathan. When Jarrat's wife died, the boys' grandmother and Uncle Burley stepped in to take care of the children. Their father was so sorrowful that he couldn't provide the emotional support they needed. Burley tells about the boys growing up and going off to fight in World War II. Some of the young soldiers from Port William never returned.

Wendell Berry writes with empathy about grief, and trying to carry on. The good folks in Port William care for each other, and try to help their families weather their grief and life's disappointments.

This story was in the August 2008 issue of "The Atlantic" magazine. I also remember parts of it from Wendell Berry's books about Port William. I've enjoyed everything I've read from this author.

[Cecily · Rating 5 out of 5]

“As your heart gets bigger on the inside, the world gets bigger on the outside… You remember them because they always were living in the other, bigger world.”
That reminds me of a common analogy I found helpful after my father's unexpected death. It's not perfect, but anyway, here's the grief in a jar meme:


This is a tear-jerking, pitch-perfect portrayal of bereavement. Jarrat Coulter’s wife dies when sons Tom and Nathan are 7 and 5. Their uncle Burley, who lives with his parents, becomes their de facto father and mother.
“I belonged to them because they needed me.”
He loves them to bits but sometimes feels inadequate. The boys have a distant relationship with their geographically proximate and emotionally broken father, causing tension in their teens. More people die, but on a farm, life must go on.

I read this short story in the compendium, A Place in Time: Twenty Stories of the Port William Membership, which I reviewed HERE.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. I've been wanting to read the Jayber Crow series for many years now, and I'm wondering if it may have found its time. I really enjoy books about small-town life, and Berry sure knows how to distill it.

This was a short story, the link to which you can find in the Goodreads description, but it may have the best little treatise on death and grief of any novel I've read. Also, I felt I got a pretty solid understanding of these characters by about the halfway point of this short story, which is saying something.

It seems like checking out more of Wendell Berry's work is a no-brainer. Thanks to Chrissie for her terrific reviews of most of the books in this series. One of her prior reviews came up in my GR feed, and led me to seek this series out once again.

[Cheri · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this short story courtesy of my friend Angela's review. I'd planned on squeezing in at least one of his books this month, but was glad to read this short story first. A little nudge for me to get back to Port William, Kentucky through Berry's wonderful stories.

Originally published in The Atlantic, this story can be found here:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...

[Chrissie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Free online link to the story here: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...

The text in the link is large, which is so nice.

There is a moving quietness to this story that is sure to move you. That which is spoken quietly can speak volumes. You lean in closer, and closer still, to not miss a word.

To me this book is best described through a metaphor. Envision life as a stream that flows by. The story mirrors the stream of life.

This story is a gem that sparkles. It will not take you more than a half hour to an hour to read. Read it soon. It is beautiful.

*************************

Jayber Crow 4 stars
Stand By Me 4 stars
Hannah Coulter 2 stars
A Place on Earth TBR

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I stumbled upon this little treasure of a short story tonight under Angela s reviews . The writing was simple and exquisite at the same time. I was drawn in like a moth to a flame…mesmerized … my attention captured and soon my heart.
It won’t be long before I will search out another gem of Wendell Berry’s. He leaves you with the desire to find yet another vein of gold in his mine.
Thank you, Angela for the link to this story and opening up my world to the writing of Wendell Berry. What a lovely gift to stumble upon!

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderful introduction to the writing of Wendell Berry, whom I had not yet read. This short story has beautiful writing and themes of family and grief. This is one of those quiet, nuanced reads that touched my heart.

[Aditya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written character study set in a rural farm spanning two decades from the 1920s. Jarrat is a good man whose stoicism makes it easier to respect than love him. The narrator is his younger brother who is a surrogate parent to Jarrat's kids. A short story that feels broader in scope than what the medium usually offers. The father-son relationship felt the most heartbreaking and real to me. There is no doubt they love each other but the son blames his father for being emotionally distant and unavailable; however maturity brings a new perspective to him. None of it is spelled out but in a few words Berry gives it more depth than a lot of novels with a much healthier word count.

I also loved the title Stand By Me because no character ever utters those feelings or words. But it is seen as an implicit thing that family members will always have your back when the night is at its darkest. It will hardly take 20 minutes of your time so might as well read this poignant tale taking an authentic look at grief, growing up and going on even when the stakes are at their lowest. Rating - 5/5

Story Link https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to Cathrine for choosing this short story for us to read. Wendell Berry is a new author to me. So happy to have another great author!
When I read the title, I wondered if it was the story behind the movie I watched years ago titled Stand By Me. They both have the same title, but are not the same story. This beautiful short story is so much better in my humble opinion.
STAND BY ME by Wendell Berry is one of my favourite short stories!
I highly recommend this well written short story about life, family, farming, growing up, grief and love. 4.5 ⭐️️

[☮Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful.

[Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not to be hyperbolic which certainly means I am being hyperbolic - there might be a line or two that make the short list for quotes to be on my funeral program

[James Hanson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wendell Berry’s fiction consistently hits the target for me. This collection of short stories, most of which I’ve read before, take the reader to the fictional town of Port William, Kentucky. Having grown up near Berry’s hometown on which he loosely bases his stories (I think), I can relate in some ways to the characters and the life he describes with such eloquence. The theme running through most of his stories is the membership, a tight collection of family and friends who are bound together by hard work, hard times, and love for each other. It is an idyllic community which I think most of us deeply desire but few of us ever find in our modern world. One shortcoming of most of Berry’s stories is an almost complete omission of any faith elements which would have been central to the rural communities of that time and actually pivotal in the connections between people and families. Overall, though, a 5-star for me, particularly “Fidelity” which is the reason I bought the whole collection.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful stories that link together to portray a small town in mid-West America over nearly a century. Some are truly breathtaking and involving. You feel for the families. Others are more anecdotal. There is a problem in that the stories were written over a decade or more and each need to re-establish the place and characters and family relationships, so each time you re-read a lot of information. Otherwise, great.

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfection. Life and death, and perfect moments, and not. Just beautifully written, like a friend telling you a story.

[Paul Lockman · Rating 5 out of 5]

There seems to be two different versions of Stand By Me. Many of my Goodreads friends have read a brief short story going by this title whereas the book I read is a series of interconnected short stories of 380+ pages spanning four generations which I believe may have initially been published in the US as Down in the Valley Where the Green Grass Grows.

Not to worry, the main thing is I really enjoyed my first foray into Wendell Berry. He piques your interest immediately with well drawn characters and understated but very thoughtful and evocative writing. We come to know a core group of families over multiple generations in the small farming community of Port William, Kentucky and whilst they are ordinary people going about their ordinary lives, there is never a dull moment. His writing reminds me a little of Kent Haruf. I am already looking forward to my next Wendell Berry book. 4.5 stars rounded up to 5.

[Abby Litrenta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really lovely stories! This makes me want to live in a small rural town where you can feel the vastness of the land, and live and work with the same neighbors for fifty years.

[Froukje Cradock · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book I read was actually a collection of short stories including this one but it isn't listed on Goodreads... There's some rare jewels amongst these stories. Particularly the story of Burley Coulter's death, Fidelity, will remain with me for a long time...

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my first time reading Wendell Berry's writing, despite owning two of his novels. This short story definitely made me look forward to finally reading them.

[Darragh Mulryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a slog. I found this tough to read, but also enjoyed many aspects of it. Its slow pace and themes are not something I'm used to, as a city boy, but I think it's good that I introduce aspects of this into my life. I found reading Berry's non fiction essays alongside this helped but the book into context more and helped me understand what it's about in a broader sense. Very grateful to the person who introduced me to this author, even if they still haven't learned to read and listened to his work on audiobook.

[*JEN the booknerd* · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sad story, very well written.

[Kathryn Bain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wendell Berry is a beautiful writer. This is one of the most enjoyable books i've ever read. His descriptive writing is exceptional - loved it.