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A Land More Kind Than Home: A Novel Kindle Edition
A mesmerizing literary thriller about the bond between two brothers and the evil they face in a small North Carolina town—author Wiley Cash displays a remarkable talent for lyrical, powerfully emotional storytelling. A Land More Kind than Home is a modern masterwork of Southern fiction, reminiscent of the writings of John Hart (Down River), Tom Franklin (Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter), Ron Rash (Serena), and Pete Dexter (Paris Trout)—one that is likely to be held in the same enduring esteem as such American classics as To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, and A Separate Peace. A brilliant evocation of a place, a heart-rending family story, a gripping and suspenseful mystery.
For a curious boy like Jess Hall, growing up in Marshall means trouble when your mother catches you spying on grown-ups. Adventurous and precocious, Jess is enormously protective of his older brother, Christopher, a mute whom everyone calls Stump. Though their mother has warned them not to snoop, Stump can't help sneaking a look at something he's not supposed to—an act that will have catastrophic repercussions, shattering both his world and Jess's. It's a wrenching event that thrusts Jess into an adulthood for which he's not prepared. While there is much about the world that still confuses him, he now knows that a new understanding can bring not only a growing danger and evil—but also the possibility of freedom and deliverance as well.
Told by three resonant and evocative characters—Jess; Adelaide Lyle, the town midwife and moral conscience; and Clem Barefield, a sheriff with his own painful past—A Land More Kind Than Home is a haunting tale of courage in the face of cruelty and the power of love to overcome the darkness that lives in us all. These are masterful portrayals, written with assurance and truth, and they show us the extraordinary promise of this remarkable first novel.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherWilliam Morrow
- Publication dateApril 17, 2012
- File size2021 KB
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Author One-on-One: Wiley Cash and Adriana Trigiani
Bestselling author Adriana Trigiani's most recent books include the novels The Shoemaker's Wife and Brava, Valentine She lives with her husband and daughter in Greenwich Village.
Adriana Trigiani: First and foremost I’d like to congratulate you on the success of your debut novel, A Land More Kind Than Home. As a writer, I know that inspiration can come from many different places— a quote, a childhood experience, the sky is the limit. What inspired you to write this novel?
Wiley Cash: Thanks, Adriana. I’d like to congratulate you on the success of The Shoemaker’s Wife. The inspiration for this novel kind of found me. In the fall of 2003 I left North Carolina and moved to Lafayette, Louisiana, to attend graduate school. One night, in a class on African-American literature, my professor brought in a news story about a young African-American boy with autism who was smothered in a healing service on the south side of Chicago. I found the story incredibly tragic, but I was also interested in a community of believers that would literally believe something to death. I felt compelled to tell this boy’s story and the story of the community surrounding him.
AT:Truth be told, I’m a big fan of the ’80s—big hair, some of the best music of all time—what’s not to like! Why did you choose to set your novel during this era? Do you see this particular time period as having an important resonance for contemporary America?
WC: The easiest answer is that Jess Hall, one of my three narrators, is nine years old in 1986. I was nine in 1986, and it was easy for me to remember how I viewed the world as a nine year old. But I soon realized that the ’80s were a very complicated decade, and I have clear memories of trying to make sense of a lot of the things that I was seeing and hearing at church, at school, and at home.
When I sat down to write A Land More Kind Than Home I recalled how things seemed in the church and in the community when I was a kid, and I balanced that seeming against the reality of being. This conflict between seeming and being—not just in churches but in families as well—is what drives much of the novel.
AT: One of the things I love most about this novel is that it’s told from very different perspectives—from a young boy to a woman in her eighties to a middle-aged sheriff. As readers can see from your author photo you don’t fit any of these criteria. Did you find it difficult to write from such different viewpoints?
WC: At first it was difficult to imagine the role each of these narrators would play in the novel. As I grew to know these characters better, I realized that each possessed a particular knowledge about the tragedy involving the young boy, and I understood that each of them viewed it from a very different perspective. This story belongs to the community, and I had to let the community tell it.
AT: I’m a huge fan of book clubs. In my mind, there’s nothing better than getting together to discuss your favorite book over a glass of wine. Are there any particular themes that book clubs might enjoy exploring in your book?
WC: I think book clubs are wonderful too, and there are a lot of issues in A Land More Kind Than Home for book clubs to discuss: the power of faith, community responsibility, family secrets, marriage and infidelity. A lot of book clubs have wanted to talk about the role of the boys’ mother in the novel: Was she a good mother who believed her son could be healed, or was she a bad mother who invited tragedy upon her family?
Review
From the Back Cover
A stunning debut reminiscent of the beloved novels of John Hart and Tom Franklin, A Land More Kind Than Home is a mesmerizing literary thriller about the bond between two brothers and the evil they face in a small western North Carolina town
For a curious boy like Jess Hall, growing up in Marshall means trouble when your mother catches you spying on grown-ups. Adventurous and precocious, Jess is enormously protective of his older brother, Christopher, a mute whom everyone calls Stump. Though their mother has warned them not to snoop, Stump can't help sneaking a look at something he's not supposed to—an act that will have catastrophic repercussions, shattering both his world and Jess's. It's a wrenching event that thrusts Jess into an adulthood for which he's not prepared. While there is much about the world that still confuses him, he now knows that a new understanding can bring not only a growing danger and evil—but also the possibility of freedom and deliverance as well.
Told by three resonant and evocative characters—Jess; Adelaide Lyle, the town midwife and moral conscience; and Clem Barefield, a sheriff with his own painful past—A Land More Kind Than Home is a haunting tale of courage in the face of cruelty and the power of love to overcome the darkness that lives in us all. These are masterful portrayals, written with assurance and truth, and they show us the extraordinary promise of this remarkable first novel.
About the Author
Wiley Cash is the award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of A Land More Kind Than Home. A native of North Carolina, he has held residency positions at Yaddo and The MacDowell Colony and teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Southern New Hampshire University. He and his wife live in Wilmington, North Carolina.
Product details
- ASIN : B005Z0PYH4
- Publisher : William Morrow; Reprint edition (April 17, 2012)
- Publication date : April 17, 2012
- Language : English
- File size : 2021 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 325 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #272,889 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #394 in Religious Mysteries (Books)
- #755 in Religious Historical Fiction (Books)
- #1,159 in Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Literary Fiction
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Wiley Cash is the New York Times best selling author of When Ghosts Come Home, The Last Ballad, A Land More Kind than Home, and This Dark Road to Mercy. He currently serves as Alumni Author-in-Residence at the University of North Carolina-Asheville. He lives with his wife and two young daughters on the coast of North Carolina.
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The book begins with the voice of Adelaide Lyle who is an older woman known in the area of North Carolina where the story takes place as a midwife and someone to whom people can go to talk out their problems. She has been a member of the same church for many years, and the same church where Julie Hall and her two sons, Jess and Christopher, a mute, attend. Julie's husband, Ben Hall, doesn't go to church. Julie goes inside the church, but doesn't allow the children to go inside yet. At 9 and 13 years old, they are still too young for what goes on in Carson Chambliss's church services. Chambliss had come to town after the death of the former pastor and had made a lot of changes.
"The name of our congregation got changed too, from French Broad Church of Christ to River Road Church of Christ in Signs Following. Under that new sign, right out there by the road, Chambliss lettered the words 'Mark 16:17-18' in black paint, and that was just about all he felt led to preach on too, and that's why I had to do what I done. I'd seen enough, too much, and it was my time to go." (pg. 2, Loc. 95)
Miss Adelaide had seen enough of Chambliss and his deacons handling dangerous snakes, and she had an inkling that Chambliss himself was the real snake in the grass. The pastor had most of the congregation under his spell, but Adelaide was most concerned about the children who were in the church on Sunday mornings, and little did she know that the days of one of that flock would be numbered.
Jess and Christopher were taught by their mother that it was improper to spy on grown-ups. But Christopher, or Stump as he was nicknamed, and his brother, Jess, did a little spying one afternoon and saw something that they never should have seen. Stump was mute, unable to speak at all, and Jess would never tell. Jess loved Stump and watched over him, protecting him and helping him. Stump and Jess were close and loved each other and often played together. Their father, Ben, was someone that Jess looked up to.
Jess, Adelaide and the local sheriff, Clem Barefield, tell the story from their viewpoints. The book is a story of old hurts brought to the forefront, forgiveness, truth and healing. It is also a story of deceit. The ending comes far too soon as the story escalates into a surprising outcome and we must say good-bye to the characters.
I loved this book and Wiley Cash is certainly a writer to keep an eye on. I'm looking forward to his next book. Highly recommended.
Wiley has a real talent for writing from the perspective of nine year old Jess Hall and the other young boys in the story. Jess's thoughts flew from his head right onto the page with such truth and poignancy, every nuanced thought and action was believable. The relationship between Jess and his brother and Jess's friend is perfectly written. I could always picture myself there with them. The adults were also real and sympathetic, even when their actions were questionable.
This book was full of "if only's". So much that was unspoken and unacted upon could have changed events in dramatic ways. As the saying goes, "Bad things happen when good men (and boys) do nothing." The actions carried out by Pastor Chambliss destroys his congregation, their lives and families and wantonly kills innocents to satisfy his Jesus complex.
I gave this four stars instead of five for only one reason. At the very beginning, and occasionally throughout the narrative, the characters were thinking in a prose on the page that indicated a learned person (notice I didn't say intelligent), and then suddenly all the dialogue and some of the narrative was very indicative of the backwoods of Appalachia. This was very jarring at the beginning of the book. After the first page and a half of very 'well-spoken' commentary by Adelaide, she seemed to change completely - injecting ain't and don't know nothing and reckon into the narrative. I thought "did I miss something here" and went back and re-read the beginning. I can't imagine the author did this on purpose. I can only assume he had lapses in carrying the correct "voices" through the book. Still, quite a worthy read. I enjoyed this book so much. Wiley Cash has a very unique writing voice. Will be curious to see where he goes from here.
Top reviews from other countries
Wir erleben eine Woche im ländlichen North Carolina der 80er Jahre. Eine Woche im Leben einer kleinen Kirchengemeinde mit einem ungewöhnlichen Leitspruch: "Die Zeichen aber, die da folgen werden denen, die da glauben, sind die: in meinem Namen werden sie Teufel austreiben, mit neuen Zungen reden, Schlangen vertreiben, und so sie etwas Tödliches trinken, wird's ihnen nicht schaden; auf die Kranken werden sie die Hände legen, so wird es besser mit ihnen werden" (Markus 16, 17-18 - und siehe, man kann auch im Neuen Testament fündig werden, wenn man sich für die dunklen Seiten des Glaubens interessiert).
Drei Ich-Erzähler hat der Roman: Jess, den kleinen Jungen, der seinen stummen Bruder Stump über alles liebt und sich dennoch an ihm schuldig macht; Adelaide, die alte Hebamme des Ortes, die schon vor Jahren aus gutem Grund auf Distanz zur Gemeinde gegangen ist, aber immer noch unter dem Bann des Pastors steht; und Clem, den Sheriff und Ordnungshüter alter Schule, der sich nach Kräften bemüht, die Eskalation der Ereignisse unter Kontrolle zu halten. Die Motive anderer Hauptpersonen wie der Mutter, deren religiöser Wahn sie daran hindert, ihr Kind zu schützen, oder des Pastors, der seine ganz eigene Agenda hat, erahnen wir nur von außen. Was der kleine Stump bei alledem empfindet, wissen wir nicht. Am Ende der Woche ist eine Familie zerstört, und dennoch zeichnet sich am Horizont ein Silberstreif ab, aus einer Richtung, aus der man es kaum erwartet hätte.
Wiley Cashs Roman ist ein fulminantes Erstlingswerk, mitreißend geschrieben und spannend bis zur letzten Seite. Er zeichnet ein unheimliches Bild von Auswüchsen der amerikanischen Religionsfreiheit und dessen, was passieren kann, wenn ein charismatischer Manipulator auf eine Herde Menschen trifft, die ihren Kopf lieber zum Glauben als zum Denken benutzen.
I felt I was at home in a place I’d never been.
Cash leads the two-step, dipping in and out of his character’s lives, gently rock-stepping through a dry August. You could feel the sweat pearling on the forehead, you could smell the odor of perspiration seeping through their ‘Sunday’ best.
Like a mournful vibration on a violin string, the story lingers long after the last page is turned. It was fitting it was read in the Summer time.
A solid 4 out of 5. With a high recommendation to read especially if you love the feel of small-town America rooted in history and tradition.






