Pattern of a Man and Other Stories

"I consider James Still one of our best writers. He has the intellect and learning to understand the why and the wherefore of the hill people along with the art writing not just about people but writing people, action, and background. - Harriette Simpson Arnow In the eleven stories included in Pattern of a Man as in all of his work, James Still condenses life and language into a carefully etched, ripely suggested work of art. . . . Long after most of the best-seller list have been discarded, there will be discerning and reflective readers rediscovering facets of the human experience through works such as Pattern of a Man." - Wilma Dykeman

"I think that up there in Knott County, well off the beaten path, [James Still] became a nearly perfect writer. His stories consist of one flawless sentence after another. The words are rightly chosen; the rhythm is right; the sentence is rightly poised within the paragraph and within the story as a whole. . . . The stories have both economy and amplitude; they make of economy the very instrument of amplitude. Not many writers have been able to concentrate so much power into a few pages. When you look up from "The Nest" or "The Scrape," you find the room filled with afterimages, and you must sit awhile before you can think of something else. Because, perhaps, of its artistic integrity this body of work never exploits or condescends to its subject, a region that has been condescended to and exploited almost by convention." - Wendell Berry