Shiner

Shiner

Adult fiction
"It started with a burn, just like the stories of Moses my
father used to tell. Moses, he said, was nothing more than a shepherd
hiding in the hills until he scaled a mountain and found a flaming
bush. Then he was never the same. My father had a tale just as
magical, a story of his own origins as a man of God. He loved to tell
it as much as my mother wished she hadn't ever believed it."
In Shiner Amy Jo Burns transports to a present day place in
America, subject to the ills of both past and present, that will be
foreign to almost all of us. It's a place where people live in
rudimentary mountain shacks without even electricity and running
water. Horrendous illnesses and injuries are treated with home
remedies and prayer, no doctors involved. Ministers handle venemous
serpents during church services. Moonshiner is still a vocation. But
an epidemic of opiate addiction is putting shiners out of business.
And mining operations and their aftermath are turning streams people
rely on for drinking water toxic.
When Briar is seventeen lightning strikes the loft bed he's
sleeping in. When his mother finds him unconscious she relies on
prayer and a faith healer. When he recovers he's speaking of
visions. "...He was no longer Briar, the long gone logger's son, but
Briar who'd heard from God."
Fast forward nearly two decades. Briar is married to Ruby, the
belle of their small town, and father to teenage Wren. The family
lives primitive way off the grid. Briar is the serpent handler
preacher for a small congregation. His beloved venemous reptiles have
a shed of their own where he likes to hang out.
One morning Ivy, Ruby's long term best friend, visits Ruby who
is outside making soap the old time way, boiling lye and grease in a
cauldron over a wood fire. Ivy trips. The cauldron tips, spilling
its boiling contents over her. Wren is sent to bring Ivy's sons to
their father. She returns home to find Ivy seemingly unscathed.
"...Ivy was better. Ivy was new. I'd never seen my father work
this kind of magic before. I'd only heard stories of mountain folks
about the powers God had given him, but today I witnessed them for
myself."
Soon, however, miracle turns into tragedy.
This novel, told in a unique voice and rich in passion, loss,
betrayal, and tragedy, is impossible to out down after the first few
pages.
On a purrrsonal note, the heat wave has finally broken. Tobago is no
longer trying to climb in the refrigerator every time I open the
door. The rain this morning is such a blessing to the garden. Now
that I'm going to the library I've been able to read and review a
bunch of picture and juvenile books in addition to adult and YA. I am
using this summer to build up my backlog of reviews in notebooks so
I'll have new content to post when life gets hectic. The tenth
anniversary of this blog is coming up--August 10. I've never failed
to provide fresh context and don't intend to any time soon. I hope
you have a great weekend planned. Mine will probably contain a night
at camp, a family barbeque, and fireworks. (Jules)
It is finally cool again!!! YASSS!!! (Tobago)
A great big shout out with best wishes for a safe and happy long
weekend go out to you, our dear readers. Don't drink and drive.
Check for ticks. Practice COVID caution. And please leave fireworks
to the professionals.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway


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