What readers think of A Land More Kind Than Home, plus links to write your own review.

This book is intense. Very intense. I found I couldn't read it for more than an hour at a time because it just tore my heart in two. Masterfully written by Wiley Cash, this is the story of two brothers, Stump (Christopher) and Jess, who live on a tobacco farm in a valley of mountainous western North Carolina. Their mother, Julie, belongs to a Pentecostal-snake-handling church. Unadulterated evil emanates from the church and its pastor, invading the souls of its parishioners—something only Jess appears able to see. To tell more of the story would be a spoiler.

Each chapter is told in the first person by one of three characters who are most intimately involved in the plot—the 80-something-year-old church matriarch, 9-year-old Jess and the county sheriff—a literary technique that fully brings the characters to life. We readers are able to climb into the story through their personas.

This is a literary masterpiece. It is a powerful lesson in betrayal and greed, forgiveness and family, good and evil, and—in the end—an abiding hope in God. It will invade your soul and hang on. It will make you cry. It will make you think. It may even haunt your dreams. "Gripping" doesn't even begin to describe it. All I can say is this: Read it.

If you grew up in a very Christian fundamentalist environment, you will find this familiar.

Wiley Cash has a way with words. He can make you see a rain storm or love with equal clarity. In A LAND MORE KIND THAN HOME he has written a beautiful elegy for love and death, faith and fear, condemnation and redemption. Told in three very different voices, the tale unfolds in starts and pauses and then backtracks on to itself. Occasionally Cash loses his way and the story loses momentum. But stick with him because in the pulsing end, you will know you have found a wonderful new voice.

A LAND MORE KIND THAN HOME follows the inhabitants of a small back country Appalachian community. They include an outsider Sheriff and the drunk the sheriff blames for his son's death, the drunk's son and his church obsessed wife, their two young sons - one a mute, a spellbinding preacher with a hidden past and the area's "healer" woman. Cash is point perfect in detailing the culture of Appalachia, the speech patterns of his characters and an atmosphere of foreboding.

Book groups will find a wealth of topics including family dynamics, faith and faith that becomes oppressive, guilt and how it can poison relationships, fear of the unknown, outsiders, understanding disabilities, alcoholism, infidelity, and secrets.

The author did an excellent job at conveying to the reader the emotions that people show when they’re riled up and in the spirit of the moment and how things can be over-looked when caught up in the emotion packed moment of loud music, hand clapping and rattlesnakes. A family is shattered, a town has hung its head in shame, and a lot of healing needs to take place in this small town of Marshall, North Carolina.

For a debut novel, Wiley Cash has written a book that grabs you, pulls you and doesn’t release its grip until the very unexpected end. I’ll be looking for more of this authors work and recommending this novel to my friends.

My goodness but this book was fantastic! His use of local color and dialect, his descriptions, his use of the weather to ratchet up the tension, and all this from a first time author. The town midwife, Adelaide, who sees it as her job to protect the children, the sheriff, who has plenty of tragedy in his own life, and the two young boys, Jess, who is in third grade, and his older but mute brother, Christopher. When evil comes to their small Appalachian town in the form of itinerant preacher, Chambliss, events are set in motion that will leave few unscathed. Two boys would pay for their natural curiosity in a way that is out of all proportion to their misdeed. I knew this story drew me in when I found myself wanting to grab one of the characters and tell them not to do it. I felt the tension in the pit of my stomach, like the way one feels before the big drop on a roller coaster. Yet in ends in a note of hope and a looking forward to that I would not have thought possible. Absolutely gripping!

A gripping well told story with memorable characters that you won't be able to put down. Some of these characters will haunt you.

Although this turned out not to be the kind of book I ordinarily would read, it is an interesting read and characters are well-developed. For me, there's a lack of riveting events to hold my attention, so I wouldn't label it a "can't put it down" book but it's a good one to have along on a long plane ride, especially if you have a couple of hours layover in an airport!

I completed A LAND MORE KIND THAN HOME a few weeks ago and have thought about it extensively EVER SINCE. This novel is full of metaphors which I love. I also find the strategy of different character chapter narrators to be especially effective in this particular book considering all the parallel story lines. I was most intrigued by the subject matter, some of which concerned the place of organized religion in our lives. John Meachem, on CHARLIE ROSE recently, addressed the issue of whether religion should be in the hands of the religious. How timely an answer is A LAND MORE KIND THAN HOME! This is an absolutely worthwhile read. Please highly consider it.