Salvation on Sand Mountain by Dennis Covington

Reviewed by Meygan

Dennis Covington is a journalist just trying to make a living. In the past, he has put himself in dangerous situations to cover stories, but he hasn’t been scared enough to quit his job just yet.  He becomes intrigued by a story about snake handler and pastor who is accused of attempting to murder his wife by rattlesnake, and decides to do his own investigation.

Glenn Summerford is the pastor of The Church of Jesus with Signs Following, a church in situated in a rinky-dink gas station in Alabama. In spite of being someone who preaches the word of God, there is a dark side to Mr. Summerford. In a drunken rage, Mr. Summerford puts a gun to his wife’s head, forces her to stick her hand in the cage of rattlesnakes he keeps for his church services, and refuses to take her to the hospital when she asks medical attention after she has been bitten. His wife had participated in the snake handling services before but only at church. Willingly accepting a rattlesnake from someone in a holy ritual is one thing, but being forced to pick up the deadly reptiles is another. She manages to escape after her husband passes out from the amount of alcohol he has consumed. 

It doesn’t take long for the trial to become national news. Even more than the sensational murder attempt, people are riveted to reports about Summerford’s religious beliefs. Trying to delve into more information about the church and its people, Covington and his photographer friend begin to attend The Church of Jesus with Signs Following. Covington was raised in a Methodist church, so he was taken aback by the usual rituals of a snake handling service. But still he found something fascinating about the handling of rattlesnakes and what exactly causes the people to get so close to death just to feel Jesus within their presence. The longer Covington spends at the church, the more engrossed he becomes. Most of the people at the church have accepted him as a member, referring him to as Brother Dennis. Some hint that they wish he would handle snakes and participate in their rituals but not in a forceful or demanding way. 

While Salvation on Sand Mountain does provide minimal coverage about Glenn Summerford’s trial, the book mainly focuses on Covington’s spiritual awakening and the people of the church. Although I enjoy reading about religion, this is not a book I thought I would appreciate due to Covington’s journalistic viewpoint. However, my wariness was laid to rest as I flipped through the pages, captivated by Covington’s “voice.” I enjoyed reading his spiritual memoir, and I can see why this book was a National Book Award Finalist.

Snakes alive: Awakening by S. J. Bolton

Awakening by S. J. Bolton (F BOL Main)

Reviewed by Jeanne

Clara Benning is a veterinary surgeon specializing in wildlife rehabilitation in a small English village, a position she chose, in part, because it allows her minimal contact with people.Clara was horribly injured as a child and those physical scars have made her reluctant to expose herself to the stares and comments people are prone to make. Besides, she likes animals of all sorts, and working with wildlife means she doesn’t often have to deal with any owners:only the animal itself.Her reclusive ways don’t endear her to the villagers but she’s known to be very good at her work and very knowledgeable--which is why she gets the call that changes her life.

With the exception of the adder, most British snakes are quite harmless to humans.That fact is lost on the hysterical mother who calls Clara. She only knows that there is a snake in her daughter’s crib. Clara rushes over, expecting to find a grass or garter snake, but realizes to her horror that it is indeed an adder lying on the infant’s chest. Using all her skills, she tries to extricate the snake before the baby can be harmed.

This turns out to be just the beginning. A man dies, apparently from snakebite, but the amount of venom is more than one snake could possibly produce. A deadly taipan— a snake native to Australia and New Guinea—shows up in the village. It isn’t long before both Clara and the authorities realize that something very unnatural is going on, and that there must be a human hand behind some of these “accidents.”

The difference is that the police think that hand might belong to Clara.

I thoroughly enjoyed Bolton’s first book, Sacrifice, and Awakening was just as exciting. She has the knack of creating memorable characters as well as supplying the reader with a great deal of factual information without lecturing. In this book, she brings in a lot of snake lore as well as Roman customs and –amazingly enough!—information about the snake-handling churches in America.(Clara is the daughter of an Anglican bishop and so is conversant with the relevant scripture.) Her settings are wonderfully realized:I could almost smell the damp and feel the chill of the stone in the house. Her prose is clear and clean, and she uses both character and place to ratchet up the tension.

A colleague was disturbed by the revelation as to how Clara came to be disfigured as a baby.I was so anxious to find out how the story turned out that I confess I skimmed over that section but as I recall the violence was strongly implied rather than graphic.

There are some injuries to animals in the book, something else I usually find off-putting, but Bolton handles it sensitively. The underlying respect and love that Clara has for her charges helped in that respect.The enthusiasm of a globe-trotting herpetologist for all things serpentine felt genuine, although I still don’t want my own snake, thank you very much.

However, I do want another book by S. J. Bolton. Her next one is entitled Blood Harvest and is scheduled for June, 2010.