A World Lost: A Novel

By Wendell Berry

In this, Wendell Berry’s fifth novel and ninth work of fiction, Andy Catlett revisits his own ninth year in the summer of 1944 when his beloved uncle is shot and killed by the surly and mysterious Carp Harmon. This is his Uncle Andrew, after whom the boy is named, someone who savored “company, talk, some kind of to–do, something to laugh at.”

Years later, still possessed by the story, Andy seeks to get to the bottom of all this, to understand the two men and their lethal connection.

“Berry deftly balances Andy’s investigation into the town’s past with an equally moving realization not only of the sustaining value of memory but of the manner in which they are shaped in enduring ways by what they love . . . a sharp portrait of a town nursing its secrets over decades.” —Kirkus Reviews

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Mar 1, 2009
• ISBN: 9781582439709

Reviews for A World Lost

[laugal-2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Mr. Berry's stories and characters stay with you long after you finish his books.This one is no different.His books are treasures.

[lgcullens · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In this fifth Berry novel, a man approaching sixty contemplates the murder of an uncle much earlier in his life — the reader seeing how it has affected him, family, and community members. The remembrances are presented as disembodied fragments in time. Herein, Berry considers man's violence and the ripple affects of the consequences.

In my view, this book is another example of first-class writing skills.