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A review by ceegreen
Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia by Dennis Covington
5.0
This was a strange and wondeful read. I picked it because I love a bit of Southern Gothic, and this is a non-fiction take on that genre, a journalist going back to his roots in Alabama to investigate the snake handling phenomenon.
But several times I had to check that this is non-fiction, isn' t it? The 68 year old identically dressed twins, Burma and Irma; the distant relative who tells Dennis her two brothers had been eunuchs and when asked for details clarifies they had high voices, couldn't grow beards and were born without testicles, or the snake handler who decides after being bitten 3 times, that she'll just stick to the fire handling and strychnine drinking - that all happened. Didn't it?
The book is full of such intriguing bizzareness, it's made me rethink everything I've read in the Southern Gothic genre, because to trot out and modify an over-used, but so appropriate cliche, truth in the South seems to be at least as strange as fiction - no need to make it up!
But several times I had to check that this is non-fiction, isn' t it? The 68 year old identically dressed twins, Burma and Irma; the distant relative who tells Dennis her two brothers had been eunuchs and when asked for details clarifies they had high voices, couldn't grow beards and were born without testicles, or the snake handler who decides after being bitten 3 times, that she'll just stick to the fire handling and strychnine drinking - that all happened. Didn't it?
The book is full of such intriguing bizzareness, it's made me rethink everything I've read in the Southern Gothic genre, because to trot out and modify an over-used, but so appropriate cliche, truth in the South seems to be at least as strange as fiction - no need to make it up!