Serpent And The Spirit: Glenn Summerford'S Story [Paperback]

Thomas Burton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 4, 2004 | ISBN-10: 1572332468 | ISBN-13: 978-1572332461 | Edition: 1

A comprehensive, multilayered set of narratives telling the story of Holiness snake-handling preacher Glenn Summerford, who is serving ninety-nine years for attempting to murder his wife, Darlene, by forcing her to be bitten by a rattlesnake.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"A snake handler convicted of the attempted murder of his wife by means of serpent bite is serving ninety-nine years in prison. The reader is gradually pulled into an increasingly complex story as Thomas Burton allows the many individuals involved in this event to tell their stories. Readers are less likely to find themselves concerned with what ‘really’ happened than with larger issues they too will become involved in. This is more than a story about the headline ‘Preacher tries to murder wife—with rattlesnakes!’ It is a story of individuals struggling with their faith and their fate under the steady gaze of their God." —Ralph W. Hood Jr., winner of the American Psychological Association’s William James Award in the psychology of religion

From the Inside Flap

"Alabama Trial Involves Snakes And Bit of Faith," headlined the New York Times in its coverage of the Scottsboro trial of the Rev. Glenn Summerford, accused of trying to kill his wife with the snakes he handled in his church. But the Times hardly told the whole story, and even when the article’s author, Dennis Covington, published an account of his experiences reporting on the trial and being drawn into the religious life at the Church of Jesus with Signs Following, readers were not given a full picture of all those affected by the incident. Subsequent television coverage further explored the truth of the incident, yet many outside Appalachia fail to go beyond sensationalism when it comes to religious believers who take literally the gospel injunction of Mark 16.

Here, then, is a comprehensive, multilayered set of narratives of Glenn Summerford’s fall from grace—as told by its participants, through interviews, court documents, and other primary sources. Thomas Burton assembles a series of monologues that unfold like a classical tragedy: a flawed, influential man within his particular realm is caught in a web of outside forces, including the infidelity of his wife, the notoriety of his past, and the opposition of society to his circle. It is a web of forces from which he cannot untangle himself, and he is consequently undone.

Free of either prejudice against or romanticizing about the snake-handling Holiness religion, this book presents an absorbing story of a fascinating group of people, while allowing the reader to draw his or her own conclusions about Summerford’s guilt or innocence. The Serpent and the Spirit is a startling commentary on truth and its representation, religion and its expression, humanity and its flaws.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: Univ Tennessee Press; 1 edition (June 4, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1572332468
• ISBN-13: 978-1572332461
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,052,624 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Serpent and the Spirit, July 26, 2004

By 

MLD-TN - See all my reviews

This review is from: Serpent And The Spirit: Glenn Summerford'S Story (Paperback)

By employing a non-traditional, storytelling technique making use of court records and transcriptions of taped interviews, Thomas Burton has told a documentary-like tale of people whose lives are as confusing and bizarre as any that Flannery O'Conner's fiction could have created. Glenn Summerford, a serpent-handling, Holiness preacher was accused of attempted murder, convicted, and sentenced to ninety-nine years in prison. His wife Darlene alleged that he forced her at gunpoint, while he was in a drunken rage, to put her hand into a box of poisonous snakes that Glenn kept at home for use in his church services. She was, according to medical attendants, bitten and hospitalized, but "the truth" of the matter is clouded from the outset. Some of those interviewed claim the whole court procedure was rigged in an attempt to rid Jackson County, Alabama, of Summerford and the practices of his congregation -- which church members sincerely believe is a way for them to show their obedience to the Word of God. Glenn's two wives, as well as his children by both women, all have differing accounts of what could have happened -- and for the motives of those involved.

No matter what the reality of the situation, Burton has tried to unravel, as Robert Browning did with his verse monologues in The Ring and the Book, the immensely complicated, and ultimately unfathomable mess that life can be for all of us, and the writer has done so in a highly entertaining and readable fashion.--Michael Davenport

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Non-Fiction Mystery You Could Ask to Read, July 30, 2009

By 

Boomer "CeeCee" (Raleigh, NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Serpent And The Spirit: Glenn Summerford'S Story (Paperback)

Read this book cover to cover--even more than once, as I have--and you still won't know if he did or didn't do it. This book grabs you by the collar and shakes you from its very first page and doesn't let go, even after you've finished the book.

The characters are as complex as any Agatha Christie every created, and Burton's characters are very, VERY real! They are as rural as people can be in the USA, but that does not make them simple, certainly not, as stereotypes would have it, simple-minded. They calmly stand their ground and let you know (1) that they are every bit as right in their beliefs about handling poisonous snakes as Native American medicine men (my words, not theirs), and (2) they do not believe Glenn Sommerford made any effort to murder his wife. And if you think they are just delusional followers of a fanatical religious cult figure, then you haven't read the book.

Even Glenn's son by the wife he is accused of trying to murder says...well, I think you need to read it for yourself.

One fair warning is in order: Don't tackle this book until you are sure you are ready to have all your beliefs about rural indiginous Appalachian mountain dwellers, snake-handling fundamentalist Christians and justice in American courts shaken to their very foundations. This book sends a torando right through your comfort zone.

One reading, and you'll be on the "Free Glenn Summerford" bandwagon in two shakes of a rattler's tail!