HOLY ROLLER HEART

In Luckett’s novel set in the 1950s, a teenage boy in the Missouri Ozarks attempts to kill his abusive step-uncle with sorcery—and seemingly succeeds.

Moses “Mo” Grady Witt is a 13-year-old boy who sees himself as caught in the grip of sin. By his own estimation, he masturbates far too much, lusts too deeply after neighbor Loveda Johnson’s ankles, and desperately covets the brand-new 1955 Chevrolet owned by his step-uncle, Harman Cornelius Claggett. Also, he’s weighed down by a sense of shame, as the same step-uncle sexually assaults him under the pretense of securing him against sin. Harman is the brother of his new stepfather, Freeman Joe; Mo’s mother, Mildred, tricked Joe, whom she says is “touched in the head,” into marriage so she could properly house the seven children she’s had with six different men. Mildred also openly practices witchcraft, and she believes that Mo has inherited the gift—or “conjuring dodge”—as well. He uses a magnet, which he believes is magical, to cast a spell designed to kill Harman, who does, in fact, die—but it’s Mo’s mother who’s arrested for murder, which sets into motion an acrimonious battle for Harman’s farm between Mo’s family and Harman’s sister, Aunt Big Bertha. Over the course of this novel, Luckett delivers a compellingly bizarre tale: a completely unpredictable yet seamless combination of a murder mystery and a theological drama. Mo is shown to be caught between two worlds—the blind dogmatism of the Christian religion, as expressed at the Holiness Christian Church, and the darkly mysterious ways of witchcraft. The story does feature some grim and horrific subject matter; however, at other times, it features unexpected aspects of farce. As such, Luckett has accomplished a rare feat: a successfully gut-wrenching drama with moments of humor.

A remarkably original and sometimes deeply moving novel.