Jayber Crow

After Jayber charts the economic decline of Port William and its slow crawl toward death, the town is hit by the death of Jimmy Chatham. The casualty of war is a reminder that a town can progress into the future, but it will not be exempt from sorrow. Troy has calculated and micromanaged every facet of his farm, but he could not buy the love and respect of his oldest son. Jimmy’s death sends Jayber into another spiritual spiral as he wrestles with the meaningless loss and his helplessness. Jayber realizes that if God always listened to human pleas, then Jesus would have come down off the cross with the work of redemption unfinished. The mysteries of man’s suffering are resolved in the work of Jesus’s sacrificial love. In the wake of Jimmy’s loss, Jayber experiences another loss. The health department forces him to make a choice: join the modern world and install plumbing or close the barbershop. Jayber has always struggled to submit to authority, but his resistance now has more to do with the fatigue of prolonged grief and a desire for change. He takes the ultimatum as an opportunity to end his time as Port William’s barber and bring his dream of a river camp to life. As fate would have it, Jayber’s calling to cut hair follows him into the woods. The patrons appear out of the trees, and continuing the theme of rebirth, Jayber’s barbershop is reborn in a shack alongside a river. Ironically, the shop in town is shut down due to a lack of running water, but the new barbershop does not have electricity to run the clippers. It does however have an endless supply of fresh, running water just outside the door.

Jayber’s river camp is inspired by Henry David Thoreau’s Walden Pond shack. Jayber read Thoreau’s diaries earlier in life and connected deeply with the idea of surrendering to a solitary life in the woods. However, Jayber’s existence is far from lonely. Just as he is fated to be a barber, he is destined to never be alone again, finding family in every place he settles. He takes immense joy in the physical labor of renovating the house and cultivating his garden, but the days spent fishing on the river with Burley or sitting around the fire with the Branches fill his soul in a way wilderness seclusion never could. Just as Thoreau finds his need for others at the end of his sojourn when he needs to borrow an ax, Jayber finds he requires human connection for contentment. In Jayber’s character, the author explores the idea that humans can be physically self-sustaining but interpersonal relationships are essential to emotional well-being. Jayber learns to provide for his physical needs but comes to appreciate how the love and care from his friends make his life more complete.

As Burley’s life comes to an end, the author signals another shift in the seasonality of life. Burley’s progeny will carry on his free-spirited ways and also the love and care of Jayber. Burley appears to Jayber for the first time on the river. Symbolically, he gifts Jayber a final home on the banks of the same river, and the two friends spend their final years together fishing in its waters and sitting on the porch near its beauty in the evening. Though Burley is gone, and his absence leaves a deep chasm in Jayber’s life, Danny and his family continue to welcome Jayber to their table and honor Burley’s open heart and generous spirit. When other significant people passed, as the town grave digger, Jayber is able to provide the details of their death and burial. However, he leaves the specifics of Burley’s passing a mystery, which makes it appear as if he just vanished. For much of the narrative, Burley has been with Jayber but does not often take a major role in the action of the story. He is a man that prefers to live just in the shadows, operating by his own set of rules. His death is no different. The author gives him the dignity of not dying on the page, and so he lives on in his children, grandchildren, and in Jayber’s heart.