"Jayber Crow" by Wendell Berry.

I've read probably everything Wendell Berry has written. "The Memory of Old Jack," in fact ended up as a song on my album, "Nothing to Lose." But this is, in my opinion, his finest novel. It brings together his skills as a poet, an essayist, a philosopher of small town and rural life in a macro-economic paradigm and wraps it in the life story of the town of Port William's barber, Jayber Crow. Wendell Berry is a writer of profound insight and wisdom. I'm going to re-read this one many times.