Feeling Close To Home in A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash

     From what Cash says about himself, he, indeed, has come a long way since his workshop with Ernest Gaines.  He has an excellent debut novel in A Land More Kind Than Home.

     Jess Hall is a young boy whose curiosity gets the best of him and exposes him to situations that he doesn’t quite know how to understand, but he knows there is something wrong happening with his mother and Stump, his younger brother who is mute.  He knows he needs to do or say something, but all he can do is try to protect his brother and to see, for himself, just what exactly pastor Chambliss is doing in that church.

          The story of Adelaide Lyle and the “fear factor” instilled by pastor Chambliss gave me the shivers AND was the compelling hook to keep me reading, while also hanging in the corner of my “peripheral” memory for the remainder of the novel, just waiting to be understood.  Cash then introduces and begins Jess’s story, which is not connected to the pastor, and only reinforces the mystery of Adelaide and her suspenseful experience. 

     Jess and the sheriff tell their story on such a personal level, that I found myself almost listening to them – listening as each shares his story, rather than simply reading their stories.  For the sheriff, his storytelling seems almost therapeutic to let go of past regrets, while developing a perspective for future ethical dilemmas.  The stories of Jess’s parents are told in the third person, and from multiple characters, which develops a sense of sympathy for them both - his mother has fallen under some influence of pastor Chambliss and his father is naïve to the circumstances surrounding his family - and thus, blame cannot be placed on either one for the tragedies that befall the family.  

     He has come to a conclusion about writing, and I would even say, creativity..."As a six-year-old, you're called a liar when you tell a story that you know isn't true.  But if you can keep telling stories and wait just a few more years, people will eventually call you a writer.  Even when they know you're stories aren't true."