'Poignant, humorous, winsome, and wise, this is Bill doing what he does best–going before us, shining the Light.' Philip Gulley, author of the Harmony series
Amity: Stories from the Heartland is a collection of short stories by well-known Quaker writer Brent Bill. Each story is set in the Midwest of the United States, a region known for its honest, hardworking, plain-speaking, religious people who are as complex and thoughtful as the most urbane city dwellers. These stories are about 1930s housewives, modern day priests, 1960s kids, and more -– as well as the varieties and vagaries of their lives' trials, triumphs, failings, joys, sorrows, and surviving -– and the beauty and mystery of it all.
It was Joan Didion who said, 'We tell ourselves stories in order to live.' In this visit to Amity, Brent Bill reminds us how, and why, to live. Poignant, humorous, winsome, and wise, this is Bill doing what he does best–going before us, shining the Light.
Brent Bill's 'Stories From the Heartland' are old-fashioned tales of small town life in the twentieth century, warm and good-hearted and sometimes LOL funny. A good choice for fans of Jan Karon's Mitford novels.
The people and places in these stories resonated with me in much the same way my own family stories resonate. It is as if Brent Bill has peered into our collective past and told the stories of our ancestors, people who are ours but who we have not yet met. And he imparts the stories with such grace and kindness, conveying that, ‘Here we are. This is what we are made of. And it is good.’ I’ve not read stories like this since reading Wendell Berry.
