Except for some casual statements about his being a writer, the many detailed accounts of family history and legend that appear almost unchanged in [Lytle's] stories and novels are the only reminders of Lytle's literary career that appear in A Wake for the Living. Few of his literary friends and associates are mentioned, and there is no account of his relationship to the Fugitive and Agrarian movements. Only the freshness and immediacy of the stories he tells—many of which are told in the understated deadpan manner of the best humorists—and the uncanny ability to select the right detail to evoke the desired response mark this loosely joined series of family anecdotes as unmistakably the work of one of our most distinguished contemporary writers.

Lytle began his family chronicle, he says, so that he could tell his daughters who they are…. In chronicling his own family history...