02/09/2026
Wendell Berry died on Monday at age 92.
Russell Moore wrote last fall, “Those of us who have savored his novels and short stories—with the familiar generations of Catletts and Coulters—can see that when Berry is gone, Port William will be gone too. No one else can or should write it.
Berry knows this too. The mind that can cite King Lear and Paradise Lost from memory line upon line knows the poetry of the King James Bible even better, certainly well enough to quote the psalmist’s assertion that our lives are 70 years or, ‘by reason of strength,’ maybe 80. He also knows that this same psalm tells us those allotted years are soon gone, ‘and we fly away’ (90:10, ESV).
Berry seems to have embedded in his latest novel, ‘Marce Catlett,’ a kind of last word for his readers—a goodbye from Port William to us.”
From the CT archive:
