Snakewoman of Little Egypt: Summary and book reviews of Snakewoman of Little Egypt by Robert Hellenga, plus links to an excerpt from Snakewoman of Little Egypt and a biography of Robert Hellenga.
Snakewoman of Little Egypt A Novel
by Robert Hellenga
Hardcover: Sep 2010,
352 pages.
Paperback: Sep 2011,
352 pages.
On the morning of her release from prison, Sunny, who grew up in a snakehandling church in the Little Egypt region of Southern Illinois, rents a garage apartment from Jackson. She's been serving a five-year sentence for shooting, but not killing, her husband, the pastor of the Church of the Burning Bush with Signs Following, after he forced her at gunpoint to put her arm in a box of rattlesnakes.
Sunny and Jackson become lovers, but they're pulled in different directions. Sunny, drawn to science and eager to put her snake handling past behind her, enrolls at the university. Jackson, however, takes a professional interest in the religious ecstasy exhibited by the snakehandlers. Push comes to shove in a novel packed with wit, substance, and emotional depth. Snakewoman of Little Egypt delivers Robert Hellenga at the top of his form.
Snakewoman of Little Egypt is a classic love triangle tale. The story balances Sunny's journey from the mystic world of Pentecostal religion into the modern world of science with Jackson's quest to leave the modern world behind in order to recover his incandescent African experience. Themes - good and evil, woman and man, religion and science, truth and falsehood - abound, but they do not overwhelm a genuinely exciting story. (Reviewed by Judy Krueger).
The Washington Post - Carolyn See
Don't start reading this book if you've got a dinner party coming up in the next few days, or a committee meeting or a golf game. You'll be calling people up with fake excuses and feeling bad about yourself - at least that's what happened to me… Snakewoman… makes no claim at all to being a great American novel, only a wonderful one.
Publishers Weekly
[The] serpentine story solidifies into a captivating and original take on the strange ways of redemption.
Booklist
Starred Review. Hellenga fills the novel not only with fascinating details of snake handling and the religious ecstasy it inspires but also with a beguiling portrait of the comfort and shared intimacy of domestic life… Yes, it is a melancholy story, but it is also immensely satisfying and even uplifting in that unique way that only deeply felt life can provide.
Library Journal
[Hellenga] mesmerizes with this brainy study of snakes and snake-handling churches, love, independence, and, yes, even the power of timpani drumming. Another flawless performance.
Kirkus Reviews
Starred Review. Gloriously quirky… three reasons to love Hellenga: He's a fine storyteller; he gives us new eyes; he restores our sense of wonder. Attention must be paid.
Mary Doria Russell
Dead solid perfect. The truest and most moving portrait of the romance of research and the lyricism of learning that you will ever find. Plus: a good solid story, right down the center. I loved this book.
Maxine Kumin
Hellenga is fearlessly inventive. Could anybody else combine snake handling, the Ituri pygmies of the Congo, life in a women's prison, learning to play timpani, a murder trial, and a poignant love affair in three-hundred-odd fast-paced, highly readable pages?
Recent Reader Reviews
Rated of 5
by Bonnie Brody Interesting subject matter and sensuous language Hellenga is the author of one of my favorite books, The 16 Pleasures. While this book does not come up to this, it has its definite merits. It is about a college professor named Jackson who is dealing with an existential crisis - should he return... Read More
Pentecostalism is a sect of Christianity that originated in rural areas of the USA in the early 1900s. Members believe that baptism in the Holy Spirit results in a personal experience of God, but salvation requires that they practice the teachings of Jesus Christ. They take every word of the Bible as literal truth and act on those words in order to be saved and be assured of entering Heaven.
George Went Hensley began to practice snake handling while a minister of the Church of God in Cleveland, Tennessee (a Pentecostal church which today claims 6 million members in 150 countries). Around 1909, his church became aware of his activities and prohibited it. Eventually, sometime in the 1920s, Hensley started his own church naming it The Church of God with Signs Following. Various other churches also began to follow the practice of snake handling, particularly in rural areas in the Appalachian region.
Snake handling churches are likely to include more mainstream Pentecostal practices as well, such as foot-washing, public repentance of sins, speaking in...
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