He wants to get away from it all. Despite a satisfying career as chief curator of a museum devoted to the vanished American past, he finds he himself wants to vanish. So with the help of a book on the life and culture of a vanished tribe of Indians known as Bluff-dwellers, he takes up residence in the wilderness of the Ozark mountains, with only a dog for company and only an atlatl - a primitive spear thrower - to provide him with his supper. His few amusements are the playing of tunes on a hair-comb-and-tissue and writing what he intends to be an indictment of modern civilization in his journals. He makes the acquaintance of a young moonshiner who keeps him supplied abundantly with corn liquor. But after six years of this life he realizes that what he is trying to get away from is himself.
Two women try to save him from drinking himself to death: an elderly widow who was once the postmistress of the abandoned town down in the valley, and a lovely but mysterious redhead who may or may not be the incarnation of the mistress of the fabled man who had founded the town ages ago.
The title of this latest gem comes from a folk hymn commonly sung at funerals, "Farther along we'll know all about it, farther along we'll understand why." With the gentle humor and earthy passion that characterize all of his novels, Donald Harington attempts to offer some knowing and some understanding, farther along.
About the Author
 Born and raised in Little Rock, Donald
Harington spent most of his summers in
the Ozark mountain hamlet of Drakes
Creek, where his grandparents operated the
general store and post office. There, before
he lost his hearing to meningitis at the age
of 12, he listened to the vanishing Ozark
folk language and old tales told by storytellers.
He has won the Robert Penn Warren Award, the Porter
Prize, the Heasley Prize, was inducted into the Arkansas
Writers’ Hall of Fame and has won the Arkansas Fiction
Award of the Arkansas Library Association. In 2006, he was
awarded the inaugural Oxford American award for Lifetime
Achievement in Literature. Entertainment Weekly has named
him “America’s Greatest Unknown Novelist.”
Author's Website
|
|
The Critics Praise:
"Harington's books are of a piece--the quirkiest, most original body of work in contemporary U.S. letters." James Sallis, The Boston Globe
"Harington is hooked into the deepest traditions of storytelling, dipping his buckets directly into the well it all comes from, pursuing a literature dedicated not to documentation or self-expression, but to fascination, to lifting us out of ourselves and the dailiness of our lives -- to making our world again wondrous and large...I do not hesitate to call Farther Along a great novel." James Sallis, LA Times
Read full review
"...seductive prose, which is laced throughout with wit and clever allusion." Publishers Weekly
"A folk-tale atmosphere as thickly constructed as an elaborate patchwork quilt is comfortably draped over the eccentric particulars of this 14th of the Arkansas author's Stay More chronicles... One feels that this strangely seductive novel's virtually symphonic emphasis on last things is moving us toward the series' conclusion—but Harington is giving nothing away." - Kirkus
"Harington's work is hailed by fans, critics and fellow authors alike as being unique, and if it is classifiable, it is probably some mutant Northern Arkansas strain of magical realism, maybe… impressive and fun to read… very much an original." Arkansas Online
"In this latest installment of his "Stay More" saga, Harington offers meditations on wisdom, love, death, sex, and hope...this book's insights into the human character reveal why Harington deserves to be better known." Library Journal
|
