With Look Back All the Green Valley, Fred Chappell brings to a close one of the most rewarding cycles of novels in recent memory. Now grown, Jess Kirkman returns to the North Carolina mountain town of his boyhood to be with his ailing mother and to settle at last the family's accounts after the death of his father ten years ago. Established in Greensboro with a wife and the beginnings of a career as a poet, Jess has long been removed from his time in the hills. But cleaning out a secret workroom reunites Jess with tales of his youth and the spirit of his irrepressible father, Joe Robert Kirkman. A discovery he makes in his father's shed leads him back into the past-for in the dusty room he finds an unusual machine made of stovepipe and ceramic, and a handwritten map peppered with the names of several women. These clues help Jess uncover a part of his father's history he never knew: a quest through space and time in search of truth, beauty, and a perfect revenge.Rich in the storytelling traditions of Southern Appalachia, Fred Chappell's magical novel celebrates a way of life that has passed. Look Back All the Green Valley follows Chappell's three previous novels-Farewell, I'm Bound to Leave You, Brighten the Corner Where You Are, and I Am One of You Forever-and confirms his status as one of our most treasured writers.Author Bio: Fred Chappell is the author of more than 20 books of poetry and fiction. His awards include a Rockefeller Grant, the Award in Literature from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, the Best Foreign Novel Prize from the French Academy, the Bollingen Prize in Poetry, and the Ingersoll Foundation's T.S. EliotAward for Creative Writing. He teaches at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro, where he lives with his wife, Susan.