Published in 2001 by Gnomon Press This reissue of a 1976 collection, featuring a new afterword by Wendell Berry, showcases James Still's enduring mastery of the short story form. Set in the Appalachian region, these twelve stories reflect the rhythms, dialects, and deep-rooted traditions of mountain life, rendered with quiet power and poetic precision. Still's characters-rural craftsmen, widows, children, and wanderers-navigate the complexities of isolation, kinship, and survival. Stories like "The Nest," "The Scrape," and "Maybird Upshaw" reveal a landscape both stark and tender, where the natural world and human spirit intertwine. With language shaped by the unique dialect of eastern Kentucky, Still's prose honors the dignity of his subjects without sentimentality or condescension. This collection affirms Still's place among the great chroniclers of American regional life, offering readers a poignant and authentic portrait of a vanishing world.
James Still (1906-2001) was born on Double Creek in Alabama, one of ten children. For most of his life he lived in a log house at the forks of Troublesome and Wolfpen Creeks in Knott County, Kentucky. The unique native dialect of the Kentucky mountains informs the language of all his stories. He is the author of River of Earth and received two Guggenheim Fellowships and many awards. Wendell Berry is a celebrated poet, novelist, essayist, and farmer. Known for its profound connection to nature, rural life, and community, Berry's work explores themes of sustainability, stewardship, and simplicity. A staunch environmentalist, he has received numerous awards for his literary and ethical contributions.
"I consider James Still one of our best writers. He has the intellect and learning to understand the why and the wherefore of the hill people along with the art writing not just about people but writing people, action, and background. - Harriette Simpson Arnow In the eleven stories included in Pattern of a Man as in all of his work, James Still condenses life and language into a carefully etched, ripely suggested work of art. . . . Long after most of the best-seller list have been discarded, there will be discerning and reflective readers rediscovering facets of the human experience through works such as Pattern of a Man." - Wilma Dykeman "I think that up there in Knott County, well off the beaten path, [James Still] became a nearly perfect writer. His stories consist of one flawless sentence after another. The words are rightly chosen; the rhythm is right; the sentence is rightly poised within the paragraph and within the story as a whole. . . . The stories have both economy and amplitude; they make of economy the very instrument of amplitude. Not many writers have been able to concentrate so much power into a few pages. When you look up from "The Nest" or "The Scrape," you find the room filled with afterimages, and you must sit awhile before you can think of something else. Because, perhaps, of its artistic integrity this body of work never exploits or condescends to its subject, a region that has been condescended to and exploited almost by convention." - Wendell Berry
