PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD

In Williams’ novel, a humble Tennessee town disguises a history of mayhem and murder.

The Wimples—a family of preachers, zealots, and rebels—have probably lived in the mountain town of Summerton for as long as the town has existed; in any case, they have the most names in the cemetery. There was Jeremiah “Papaw” Wimple, a bootlegger who, after he began preaching, built the Mountain Baptist Church of the Risen Christ in 1911. Amos, his son, attempted to organize workers at the local mill when they began mysteriously falling ill; he was blacklisted, and then caught the painful respiratory ailment himself. His lonely wife, Esther Mae, became a pawn in the wake of a local scandal.Earlier generations of the family had biblical names, but Amos and Esther Mae’s spirited daughter, Hattie Lou, is an exception; still, she grows up shadowed by church politics that she hardly understands, aside from the fact that the Mountain Baptist Church of the Risen Christ has recently been taken over by Brother Eli, a popular minister colluding with a rabble-rousing Tennessee senator, Clete Wilson. Williams presents a psychological thriller that builds slowly without fully revealing its secrets until the very end. The author skillfully conveys the dichotomy in rural lives surrounded by Christian ideals but controlled by corrupt politics. The touches of Faulknerian experimentalism are enthralling as Hattie Lou narrates some sections, while others are told from a third-person perspective. Williams also has a Chandleresque ability to craft accurately observed but sinister descriptions, even of everyday objects: “two aluminum folding chairs with woven nylon seats that had been leaning against the trailer so long that the weeds had tangled in the legs right up through the arms.” The work develops themes of faith and salvation as Hattie Lou searches for restitution, and it all builds toward an unexpected conclusion.

A powerful thriller with religious overtones and a great twist ending.