Look back all the green valley

the long version

"Now grown, Jess Kirkman returns to the North Carolina mountain town of his boyhood to be with his ailing mother and to settle at last the family's accounts ten years after the death of his father. Established in Greensboro with his wife and the beginnings of a career as a poet, Jess has long been removed from his time in the hills. But cleaning out a secret workroom here reunites Jess with tales of his youth and the spirit of his irrepressible father, Joe Robert Kirkman. A discovery he makes in his father's shed leads him back into the past, for in that dusty room he finds an unusual machine made of stovepipe and ceramic and a handwritten map peppered with the names of several women. These clues help Jess uncover a part of his father's history he never knew: a quest through space and time in search of truth, beauty, and a perfect revenge."--BOOK JACKET.