“It Is Time, Lord is beautifully written, page on page; written, composed, balanced from word to word.”—New Statesman

James Christopher—publisher, husband, and father of two—is headed for trouble. Once a North Carolina farm boy who grew up hoeing corn, fighting with his cousin, and listening to his grandmother read from the Bible, James resigns from his job for no apparent reason, drinks too much, fails in his attempt to take up writing, and, following the advice of a skirt-chasing rogue, has an affair with a woman he dislikes.

Daring to recall the events of his childhood, especially the fire that destroyed his grandparents’ home, James, obsessed with his past and its deceptions, struggles to truly understand his history and its influence on the man he has become. 

Fred Chappell is the author of a dozen other books of verse, including Backsass and Spring Garden; two story collections; and eight novels. A native of Canton in the mountains of western North Carolina, he taught at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro from 1964 to 2004. He is the winner of, among other awards, the Bollingen Prize in Poetry, Aiken Taylor Award, T. S. Eliot Prize, and Roanoke-Chowan Award for Poetry eight times over.