Editorial Content for Prayers the Devil Answers
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Reviewer (text)
Was it a curse that years later would lead to the tragic events? Teenager Celia partakes in an ancient, midnight ritual with five of her classmates that is believed to reveal who and when, or even if, she and her friends will marry. Did that one glance over her shoulder break the magic spell that would change the lives of so many?
A number of years later, Ellendor Robbins sits vigil at the bedside of her dying young husband, Albert, the recently elected county sheriff in northern Tennessee during the Great Depression. Even in good times, women had limited options for employment in a region where the railroad and sawmills held what few jobs there were for men. She is self-educated to read and write, but with no formal education, she sees a bleak future of taking her two small sons to return to her poverty-stricken hill family. Albert had been good with people but less capable with the managerial part of the job, so Ellie had taken care of the paperwork during his brief term.
"Not only is McCrumb a masterful storyteller in the classic sense of the word, but her deep love and historical background of her native Appalachian ancestry create a tapestry to be relished by her readers."
Following Albert’s death, Ellie desperately wants her boys to get the formal education she never had, so she steels herself against her quiet and restrained back-country ways to convince county officials that she can handle the administrative duties of the job. The deputies don’t want it. Albert is the second sheriff to die in the past year --- the first one was shot, and then Albert succumbed to pneumonia --- but they are happy to stick to their duties of settling drunken brawls between the railroad men and sawmill workers, the occasional break-in, or complaints about the transient hobos wandering the land across America. When a shocking murder occurs and the killer is sentenced to hang, Ellie discovers what managerial duties really mean.
Once again, Sharyn McCrumb has wrapped the history, superstitions, struggles and dogged determination of the people of her beloved Appalachia into a compelling novel. She brings to life the itinerant artists who, under Roosevelt’s WPA New Deal arts program, earned their livelihood by painting murals of local historical events in public buildings; the stark truths when single “schoolmarms” must leave their profession if they marry; the limits of folk medicine in treating diseases; and the plight of orphaned children with nowhere to turn.
Not only is McCrumb a masterful storyteller in the classic sense of the word, but her deep love and historical background of her native Appalachian ancestry create a tapestry to be relished by her readers. She spins a yarn a mile long and a yard wide, as an Ozark raised-relative used to say who claimed it took a good storyteller a while to get there, but the pattern he or she creates is in the magic of the weaving.
In PRAYERS THE DEVIL ANSWERS, we get caught up in a vibrant and suspenseful tale of a woman’s courage, in a time and place we won’t soon forget.
Teaser
Suddenly thrust into the role of primary caretaker for her family following the tragic death of her husband, Ellie Robbins is appointed to serve out his term as sheriff of their rural Tennessee mountain town. She has long proven she can handle herself. But becoming sheriff is altogether different, and the demands of the role are even more challenging when she is forced to combat society’s expectations for a woman. Soon enough, dark secrets come to light, and Ellie must grapple with small town superstitions and the tenuous ties she shares with a condemned killer as she carves out a place for herself in an uncertain future.
Promo
Suddenly thrust into the role of primary caretaker for her family following the tragic death of her husband, Ellie Robbins is appointed to serve out his term as sheriff of their rural Tennessee mountain town. She has long proven she can handle herself. But becoming sheriff is altogether different, and the demands of the role are even more challenging when she is forced to combat society’s expectations for a woman. Soon enough, dark secrets come to light, and Ellie must grapple with small town superstitions and the tenuous ties she shares with a condemned killer as she carves out a place for herself in an uncertain future.
About the Book
In Depression-era Appalachia, a desperate sheriff’s widow takes on her late husband’s job and discovers that a prayer the devil answers comes at a terrible price.
The year is 1936, and society provides no safety net for newly widowed Ellie Robbins, a woman in a small mountain town who suddenly has to support her family on her own. She’s not trained to be a teacher or a nurse, the only respectable careers for a woman. So in order to care for her children, Ellie takes the only job available: that of her late husband, the sheriff.
Ellie has long proven that she can handle herself, and her role as sheriff is largely symbolic. Yet the wariness of her male subordinates and the townspeople is palpable. Soon, as dark secrets come to light, Ellie is forced to grapple with the tenuous ties she shares with a convicted killer and the small-town superstitions that have plagued her for years.
When a condemned killer is sentenced to death for his crime, her opportunity to do so presents itself in a way she never expected. There’s one task that only a sheriff can carry out: the execution of a convicted prisoner.
Atmospheric and suspenseful, PRAYERS THE DEVIL ANSWERS is rich with the same masterful attention to historical detail and captivating folklore that you cherished in McCrumb’s renowned Ballad novels. Her luscious writing brings her unforgettable characters to life with the “pure poetry” (The New York Times Book Review) that defines her astounding novels. PRAYERS THE DEVIL ANSWERS is a mesmerizing depiction of one woman’s tenacity and strength in even the most harrowing of circumstances.
Audiobook available, read by Candace Thaxton
