The result was Lord of the Mountain, my most recent novel. In it, thirteen-year-old Nate Owens and his friend Sue Dean Baker witness the Bristol sessions, wrestle with a crazy brand of religion, and set out into the hills and hollers to solve a musical mystery.
Reading over the manuscript, it hit me: I had written a Southern novel. It had a dense texture, odd and diverse characters, mountain music, and, for godsake, snakehandling.
It’s a Southern story told from the inside, not by a Yankee visitor. And I’m very proud of it.
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