"A first novel that sings with talent. A LAND MORE KIND THAN HOME will knock your socks off."
--Clyde Edgerton, author of THE NIGHT TRAIN and WALKING ACROSS EGYPT "Wiley Cash is a talented and disciplined young writer, and his first novel, A LAND MORE KIND THAN HOME, proves it. I think this could be the beginning of a long, fruitful career." --Ernest J. Gaines, author of A LESSON BEFORE DYING and THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MISS JANE PITTMAN "A LAND MORE KIND THAN HOME is a riveting story! The writing is bold, daring, graceful, and engrossing." --Bobbie Ann Mason, author of THE GIRL IN THE BLUE BERET and IN COUNTRY "I didn’t sleep well after I finished A LAND MORE KIND THAN HOME because I kept thinking, All childhoods are not the same. Cruelty and innocence dwell together and always will. I can just imagine the intense work -- and the love -- that has gone into this." --Gail Godwin, author of EVENSONG and THE FINISHING SCHOOL "I try to state the truth and dislike flinging superlatives about with mad abandon, but I have been so deeply impressed by A LAND MORE KIND THAN HOME that only superlatives can convey the tenor of my thought: it is one of the most powerful novels I have ever read." --Fred Chappell, author of I AM ONE OF YOU FOREVER and BRIGHTEN THE CORNER WHERE YOU ARE "Cinematic and symphonic, A LAND MORE KIND THAN HOME's compelling story is revealed in a sequence of voices that are as pitch-perfect as they are irresistible. This is a wonderfully impressive debut: tender, muscled and unforgettable." --Rikki Ducornet, author of THE FAN-MAKER'S INQUISITION and GAZELLE "Whew! Wiley Cash is the real deal. His first novel, A LAND MORE KIND THAN HOME, is dense with stories intersecting like the branches in a laurel hell." --Nancy Peacock, author of LIFE WITHOUT WATER and A HOME ACROSS THE ROAD |
A Land More Kind than HomeFaith is supposed to shield children from the horrors of the world, but one Sunday nine-year-old Jess Hall watches as his autistic brother is called into a little church in the mountains of North Carolina. What happens next forces Jess to question everything he once believed about his family and his faith. Clem Barefield, the local sheriff, arrives to find a group of charismatic believers who are unwilling to utter a word about the things Jess has seen. At the center of the mystery is Carson Chambliss, a snake handling ex-convict turned preacher whose past is just as mysterious as the power he claims to possess.
The first person Sheriff Barefield turns to is Adelaide Lyle, the church matriarch, a woman whose good sense brand of religion straddles the divide between blind faith and cold fact. Her understanding of both the spiritual and the natural world makes her predictions of a violent reckoning just as viable as they are unavoidable. Jess is the lynchpin for this violence, and he tries to navigate an adult world where the truth is something hidden from children, even if they know things about it that adults do not. A Land More Kind than Home is a literary thriller, thick with stories and characters connected by faith, infidelity, addiction, and a sense of hope that is as tragic as it is unforgettable. |
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