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http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/33392878

Salvation on Sand Mountain : snake handling and redemption in southern Appalachia

For New York Times reporter Dennis Covington, what began as a journalistic assignmentcovering the trial of an Alabama pastor convicted of attempting to murder his wife with poisonous snakeswould evolve into a headlong plunge into a bizarre, mysterious, and ultimately irresistible world of unshakable faith: the world of holiness snake handling. Set in the heart of Appalachia, Salvation on Sand Mountain is Covington's unsurpassed and chillingly captivating exploration of the nature, power, and extremity of faithan exploration that gradually turns inward.

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  • "For New York Times reporter Dennis Covington, what began as a journalistic assignmentcovering the trial of an Alabama pastor convicted of attempting to murder his wife with poisonous snakeswould evolve into a headlong plunge into a bizarre, mysterious, and ultimately irresistible world of unshakable faith: the world of holiness snake handling. Set in the heart of Appalachia, Salvation on Sand Mountain is Covington's unsurpassed and chillingly captivating exploration of the nature, power, and extremity of faithan exploration that gradually turns inward."@en
  • "Un journaliste chargé d'enquêter sur un pasteur du sud des Etats-Unis soupçonné d'avoir assassiné sa femme en la faisant mordre par des crotales raconte sa découverte et sa fascination pour certaines Eglises fondamentalistes. Il a pu voir les fidèles charmer des serpents vénimeux, boire de la strychnine, pratiquer l'imposition des mains et certains la nécromancie."
  • ""It is Scottsboro, Alabama, in the fall of 1991. A snake-handling preacher by the name of Glendel Buford Summerford has just tried to murder his wife, Darlene, by snakebite. At gunpoint, he forces her to stick her arm in a box of rattlesnakes. She is bitten twice and nearly dies. The trial, which becomes a sensation throughout southern Appalachia, echoes familiar themes from a troubled secular world - marital infidelity, spouse abuse, and alcoholism - but it also raises questions about faith, forgiveness, redemption, and, of course, snakes. Glenn Summerford is convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to ninety-nine years in prison.". "When Dennis Covington covered the trial of Glenn Summerford for The New York Times, a world far beyond the trial opened up to him. Salvation on Sand Mountain begins with a crime and a trial and then becomes an extraordinary exploration of a place, a people, and an author's descent into himself. The place is southern Appalachia - a country deep and unsettled, where the past and its culture collide with the economic and social realities of the present, leaving a residue of rootlessness, anxiety, and lawlessness. All-night video stores and tanning salons stand next to collapsed chicken farms and fundamentalist churches. The people are poor southern whites. Peculiar and insular, they are hill people of Scotch-Irish descent: religious mystics who cast out demons, speak in tongues, drink strychnine, run blowtorches up their arms, and drape themselves with rattlesnakes. There is Charles McGlocklin, the End-Time Evangelist; Cecil Esslinder, the red headed guitar player with the perpetual grin; Aunt Daisy, the prophetess; Brother Carl Porter; Elvis Presley Saylor; Gracie McAllister; Dewey Chafin; and the legendary Punkin Brown, all of whose faith illuminates these pages. And then there is Dennis Covington, himself Scotch-Irish, whose own family came down off of Sand Mountain two generations ago to work in the steel mills of Birmingham, and who, in uncovering records of snake-handling Covingtons, decides to take up serpents himself." "With grace and humor and exquisite writing, Dennis Covington explores a physical and spiritual geography few readers will be prepared for. Reminiscent of the best of Flannery O'Connor, Carson McCullers, and James Agee, Salvation on Sand Mountain is southern literature at its best.""@en
  • "Chronicles the trial of snake-handling preacher Glendel Buford Summerford who was convicted of attempted murder after forcing his wife to stick her arm in a box of rattlesnakes, and details how the author was drawn into the lives and religion of the people of The Church of Jesus with Signs Following in southern Appalachia."
  • "For New York Times reporter Dennis Covington, what began as a journalistic assignment--covering the trial of an Alabama pastor convicted of attempting to murder his wife with poisonous snakes--would evolve into a headlong plunge into a bizarre, mysterious,"

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  • "Electronic resource"
  • "Church history"
  • "Church history"@en
  • "Electronic books"@en

name

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  • "Salvation On Sand Mountain"
  • "Salvation on Sand Mountain : snake handling and redemption in Southern Appalachia"
  • "Salvation on Sand Mountain : snake handling and redemption in southern Appalachia"
  • "Salvation on Sand Mountain : snake handling and redemption in southern Appalachia"@en
  • "Salvation on Sand Mountain snake handling and redemption in southern Appalachia"@en
  • "Salvation on Sand Mountain"@en
  • "Salvation on Sand Mountain"
  • "L'Église aux serpents : mystère et rédemption dans le sud des États-Unis"

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