A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash

After reading Wiley Cash's fantastic historical fiction novel The Last Ballad I bought A Land More Kind Than Home. I sped through this Southern Gothic novel, its dark and unsettling sense of dread drawing my interest. The details of place and culture are outside my scope of experience, but the insights into human nature are universal.

A con-man turned preacher takes over a church. Hidden from view by newspapers taped over the windows, worship involves faith healing, poison, fire, and snakes. Also hidden from view is the pastor's abuse of power over his parishioners and their blind trust that allows him full rein.

"It was like Mama was lost in the desert and had gotten so thirsty that she was willing to see anything that might make her feel better about being lost." from A Land More Kind Than Home

One woman dares stand up to the pastor and demands the children stay out of worship. She teaches them in Sunday School in her home. It is her way of protecting them. She knows first hand that the pastor is a dangerous false prophet and has singled her out as his enemy.

"People out in these parts can take hold of religion like it's a drug, and they don't want to give it up once they've got hold of it." from A Land More Kind Than Home

Most affecting in the novel are the stories of the children. They see things that are hidden and confusing, and ultimately are targeted by the pastor.

When a child dies during worship an investigation ensues; the action rises to propel the reader to the conclusion, in which a form of justice dealt out, after which the community begins to heal.

"It's a good thing to see that people can heal after they've been broken, that they can change and become something different from what they were before. Churches are like that. The living church is made of people, and it can grow sick and break just like people can, and sometimes churches can die just like people died...A church can be healed, and it can be saved like people can be saved." from A Land More Kind Than Home

Cash was inspired by a true story. 

Getting Personal

A pastor can have so much power because of his position, and abuse of that power can become easy. Pastors are lionized, congregants sometimes flocking around like groupies. They are allowed into the homes and souls of their congregants. When my husband was in active ministry, the denomination required education in boundaries and sexual abuse. A pastor once asked if that meant that clergy could not ever date a parishioner; basically, the answer was sure, if you intend to marry them. We knew several pastors who did marry parishioners. And we heard of pastors who had sexual relationships that were illicit. Some, not all, lost their ordination.

The title is from Thomas Wolfe's You Can't Go Home Again:

"Something has spoken to me in the night, burning the tapers of the waning year; something has spoken in the night, and told me I shall die, I know not where. Saying: “To lose the earth you know, for greater knowing; to lose the life you have for greater life; to leave the friends you loved, for greater loving; to find a land more kind than home, more large than earth.Whereon the pillars of this earth are founded, toward which the conscience of the world is tending-a wind is rising, and the rivers flow.”

You Must Go Home Again: The Barrowfields by Phillip Lewis

"O brothers, like our fathers in their time, we are burning, burning burning in the night." --Thomas Wolfe

Phillip Lewis's debut novel The Barrowfields is a remarkable story, beautifully written and wise. Henry's journey resonates with self-recognition and affirms that going home can open the path to the future.

The language is lush with a penchant for rarefied words, a nod to Thomas Wolfe's poetic and verbose style, and the novel is imbued with vivid descriptions and cinematic scenes.

The protagonist Henry Aster narrates the story of his family, beginning with the first settlers in Old Buckham. Settled deep in 'the belly' of the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina, "a town of ghosts and superstitions," and populated by under a thousand people, 'everyone else lived in the hills beyond.' His grandparents survived on little but were content.

Henry's father was considered "awful queer," a bookish boy who idolized Thomas Wolf. University provided an escape and brought him a love of Poe and Faulkner. After graduation he teaches while writing, winning early acclaim before faltering. He wants to write the great American novel--to prove his worth. Then he is called back home to care for his failing mother. The family moves into an abandoned mansion on a hill, a 'macabre' house with dark corners, haunted by ghosts. A lawyer by day, at night he retreats into a cubbyhole room to struggle with his unmanageable novel and his growing alcoholism.

"Aster's work, for all its brilliance, is impenetrable."

Henry had idolized his dad; they shared a love of books and music. But he and his sister Threnody watch their father retreat from the world until he is a 'ghost.' They pledged to always be there for the other. After the tragic death of a new sibling, their father succumbs to despair and deserts his family.

Henry leaves Old Buckram for university and law school. He falls in love with Story, a conflicted girl with her own father issues and a fear of intimacy. As he supports Story in her search for her father, returning to her home town of Lot's Folly, Henry realizes that he also must go home again and confront his past, and face the sister he abandoned.

" I suppose that one can never leave a place completely."

Wolfe's influence pervades the novel, from the setting and theme of the search for the father to the influence of  Wolfe on Henry and his father: just before Henry graduates from Chapel Hill he reads Look Homeward, Angel and You Can't Go Home Again and "never got over them entirely."

The role of books is hugely important. The Barrowfields is a 'wasteland of nothingness," a desolate opening in the woods outside of Old Buckham. When the town gathers there to burn Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, Henry implores his father to stop the book burning. In a frighting scene, his father stands up to the crowd to defend and protect the volume from the fire.

Our past leaves its scars and questions, and painful as it is, we become free by confronting it. Lewis has written a story that hearkens back to the great literature of the past while offering insight into the universal human condition.

You can learn more about Lewis and his debut novel in my interview with the author in my blog post on February 26, 2017.

Phillip Lewis

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

"Mythic in its sweep and mesmeric in its prose, The Barrowfields is a breathtaking debut about the darker side of devotion, the limits of forgiveness, and the reparation power of shared pasts." from the publisher's website

The Barrowfields
Phillip Lewis
Hogarth
Publication Date March 7, 2017
$26 hard cover
ISBN:9780451495648