How It Went

Return to Port William, the fictional Kentucky town that's long been home to Wendell Berry's autobiographical character Andy Catlett, in the thirteen stories collected here that span the decades from the postwar of the last midcentury to today.

The critically acclaimed writer and activist Wendell Berry returns to Port William, the fictional small Kentucky town that forms the basis of his most popular series, with this collection of thirteen new stories.

At the age of 80, Andy Catlett is preparing himself to join the whole Membership of Port William, which includes those departed who still seem vividly alive. As Andy looks back on his own life through these thirteen stories that range from his childhood and his earliest memories to the present day, the expansive Port William story reaches a kind of closure, as gaps long untenanted are filled.

Taking place from 1945-2001, and containing the fabulous humor and warmth that Berry is known for, How It Went reveals Andy in his most loving and retrospective mood, coming to the end of his own days surrounded by the love and memory of family and friends, living among the living and the dead.

Every book of Wendell Berry's acclaimed Port William Membership stands completely on its own. Even so, as we enter this world, we see characters who leave and who have returned, and we gather a remarkable portrait of a people on the land in a particular place in America.