He knows the South, the religious denominations that thrive there, and the impoverished white populations of Appalachia. Covington was an Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate and it shows.
What Salvation On Sand Mountain gets right: The writing is excellent. Summerford was sentenced to 99 years in prison, and Dennis Covington began to study and participate in the snake-handling church that Summerford once pastored. Preacher Glenn Summerford was tried for the attempted murder of his wife (and the attempted murder involved forcing her to stick her arm in a box of rattlesnakes). The basics are that Dennis Covington, a journalist for The New York Times and an Alabama native, traveled to Scottsboro, Alabama to report on an unusual crime. This book could fit in many genres: true crime, journalism, religious memoir, Appalachian apologetics. You’re going to want to hear the full title of the book being reviewed: Salvation On Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia. Either you walk into the experience or you turn away from it, but you know that no matter what you choose, you will have altered your life in a permanent way. There are moments when you stand on the brink of a new experience and understand that you have no choice about it.
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