Brighten the Corner Where You Are A Novel [Paperback]

This story of a day in the life of Joe Robert Kirkman, a North Carolina mountain schoolteacher, sly prankster, country philosopher, and family man, won the hearts of readers and reviewers across the country.

Fred Chappellis the award-winning author of over twenty books of poetry and fiction. His previous novels includeI Am One of You ForeverandLook Back All the Green Valley. He teaches at the University of North Carolina in Grennsboro, where he lives with his wife Susan.

1. Chappell chooses to start his story with an initiation. Into what realms is the boy, Jess, being initiated by his father?
2. At what point in the novel do you begin to get a specific sense of placethe mountainsSouthern AppalachiaHaywood County?
3. After being introduced to the hero-philosopher-clown in the first chapter, you may be so in love with him that you want to see him keep clowning forever. Or there may be non-comic attitudes that you wish he'd demonstrate. If so, what? See if any of these other attitudes are fulfilled later in the book.
4. My father had declared eternal war on custom, the narrator says. What are other principles that guide Joe Robert's life? Society features so many customs, declaring war on them yields a wealth of good plot lines. Do other principles create as many interesting situations?
5. What do you make of Jess, the young narrator, knowing his father's private thoughts and out-of-earshot words?
6. Joe Robert believes that God was something of a windbag, continually talking to mankind, but pitching His discourse beyond our abbreviated human capacities. His method was the optimistic, and God lost most of his audience. (page 34) Satire is a rather gentle form of persuasion. What is Chappell trying to persuade you of here? How familiar are you with satire? Has the use of it declined?
7. Jess says that he never waked ever in his life, but dreamed of his father as a mythological hero. Someday, Jess thought, he'lã´