Product Description

This novel describes the experiences of a young boy growing up in North Carolina in the 1940s.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #47210 in Books
• Published on: 1987-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 184 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780807114100
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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From Publishers Weekly
Set in the 1940s, this series of interlinked yarns about life on a North Carolina "scratch-ankle mountain farm" is told from the point of view of Jess, age 11. PW called Chappell "a gifted spinner of fictions that often verge on fantasy and the tall tale."
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

A Magical, Wonderful Book
This, the first in Fred Chappell's tetralogy of books about Joe Robert Kirkman and his family, consists of ten stories about ten-year-old (at the start of the book) Jess Kirkman's encounters with four of his mother's relatives, the live-in hired hand on the Kirkman farm, and some of their neighbors. Chappell's narration veers from straightforward fiction to fantasy, telling of the gusto and humor with which Joe Robert meets life. I found myself laughing out loud and slapping my knee at some of the passages, while being touched deeply by the novel's underlying theme of belonging to a family, a place, and a tradition.

" Listening" to Chappell's story gets better each time.
Once you get past the pure fun of "I Am One of You Forever," then you can start appreciating the resonance of the prose and the rich texture of literary allusions: from Homer to Hawthorne. I've read this book five or six times, and Chappell's storytelling gets better with each reading. "I Am One of You Forever" is a perfect comic complement to Charles Frazier's "Cold Mountain": both are representative of the finest Southern fiction and both, coincidentally, take place in a similar area of the North Carolina mountains. This book should receive more recognition. It's a truly great novel.

A keeper.
I read this book originally for a class in college--so I went into reading it thinking "ugh."

But not only did I love it--not only did it make me laugh, cry, roll my eyes, and a range of other emotions--but when I shared it with the rest of my family, they had the same reaction. All of us have read it, it's that good (and we don't usually agree on what's good). It is full of tall tales and mischief and is a fabulously, fabulously amazing book.