47 pages • 1 hour read
Wiley CashA Land More Kind than Home
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2012A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “Adelaide Lyle”
Adelaide Lyle, a Sunday school teacher in the small town of Marshall, North Carolina, recounts a time 10 years ago when a man named Carson Chambliss came to town and became the minister of the church she had attended. He moved the congregation to a new building and changed the church’s name. When a member of the congregation—79-year-old Moly Jameson—was bitten by a snake during a service, Chambliss insisted that she would either be healed by God or taken to heaven if that was God’s will. A few days later, Molly was discovered in her garden, dead. Adelaide visited Chambliss and told him that she would no longer attend his church and that she was removing the Sunday school students as well. Chambliss dismissed Adelaide’s concerns about Molly.
Now, Chambliss has asked to speak to Adelaide. The day before, she attended the funeral of a young boy who died during Chambliss’s service. Adelaide meets Chambliss inside the church, where he recites scripture to her and chides her for her lack of faith. Adelaide brings up the dead boy, named Christopher (but referred to by most as “Stump”), insisting that Chambliss is responsible for his death.
Suddenly, Chambliss grabs Adelaide’s hand and forces it inside a small wooden crate that sits on the floor at his feet. He holds her hand tightly inside the box, and Adelaide knows that there is a rattlesnake inside. When Chambliss asks if she is afraid, Adelaide replies that she is not. He lets go of her hand, exits the church, and drives away.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Jess Hall”
Nine-year-old Jess Hall follows his friend, 11-year-old Joe Bill, into the woods, leaving their Sunday school class behind. They come upon Pastor Chambliss’s church, but Jess, though curious, is reluctant to look in the window as Joe Bill urges: Jess’s mother, Julie Hall, has forbidden him from spying on adults. She is inside, along with Jess’s unspeaking 13-year-old brother, Stump. That morning, a man named Mr. Thompson took Stump to the church, claiming that it was his “special day.”
Jess approaches the church after all, locating a crack in the wall that he can peer through. Joe Bill follows behind. Together, they peek inside to see the congregation singing, their hands held in the air. Jess notices Chambliss in particular, especially the skin on his hand, which was burned in a fire.
Jess then recalls the previous Friday: When he returned home from school, his mother met him with two small boxes, telling him that he and Stump could catch salamanders and keep them. Jess was surprised that she’d finally consented to them keeping salamanders but headed off with Stump. For the first time, they could not find a single salamander.
The boys returned home, and as they cleaned their shoes in the spigot of the rain barrel, Jess heard sounds of sex coming from their parents’ bedroom (though he did not understand the noises). Stump tried to peer into the window by climbing on top of the rain barrel, but it fell over beneath his weight. This alerted their mother, and Jess ran off. He heard a man’s voice—not his father's—indicating that he would investigate the sound. The man turned out to be Chambliss. That night, Jess wondered if Chambliss touched his mother with his burned hand.
Now, from the window outside the church, Jess watches Stump, who stands at the front of the church along with their mother and Pastor Chambliss. Chambliss hugs Stump tightly, but Stump struggles to break free. Stump eventually falls to the floor in his struggle; several men keep him pinned there. Julie protests, asking them to free Stump, and Jess involuntarily cries out her name as he watches. His mother hits a man named Mr. Thompson, who has been restraining her, and helps Stump up.
Jess feels Joe Bill clamp a hand around his mouth to silence him as he pulls Jess down from the window. Jess runs off into the woods, but Joe Bill catches up to him, assuring Jess that the men were merely trying to help Stump by laying hands on him.
Chapter 3 Summary
At the river, Jess washes his face with water in an attempt to remove the evidence that he has been crying. A large splinter from the church window is lodged in his finger, and he splashes the blood with water as well. Joe Bill insists that the church congregation was trying to help Stump, but Jess is adamant that they were not. He stresses to Joe Bill that no one can know that they witnessed the scene.
They rejoin their Sunday school class as church is ending; afterward, Jess meets his mother in the parking lot. As she drives home, she asks Jess about the cause of the splinter, and he invents a lie. Then, she tells him that a miracle has occurred: God has begun to heal Stump of his muteness. She insists that Stump cried out “Mama.” Jess presses her, knowing it was his own cry that she actually heard. However, she is convinced that Stump will now gradually gain speech.
They arrive home to find that Jess’s father has just killed a rattlesnake. He allows Jess to study its dead body, explaining that it is a Timber rattlesnake. Jess’s mother attempts to remove the splinter, but a large portion of it breaks off, leaving a small piece of wood inside his finger. His father asks Jess and Stump to bury the snake so that an animal does not find its body.
Jess digs a hole behind the barn while Stump tags along. He tosses the snake’s head into the hole first and then picks up the body. However, when he holds it up for Stump to see, the headless body lashes against him, spurting blood onto Jess’s arms. He buries both pieces and heads to the creek to wash the blood from his arms. As he does, Jess tells Stump that it was he who cried out for their mother and that he saw what happened to Stump in the church. They return home for lunch and overhear their parents speaking about someone who may ask them for money.
That evening, Julie makes Jess come with her and Stump to a prayer meeting at the church. She explains that their grandfather, Jimmy Hall—with whom their father has had a falling out—is coming over that evening and may still be at their house when they return. She instructs Jess to wait in the truck during the prayer meeting, giving him drawing supplies to keep him entertained. Jess protests, wanting to be allowed to join them, but his mother refuses. Alone in the car, Jess falls asleep.
Jess wakes up when a man enters the car and places the key into the ignition. It is a member of the congregation—Mr. Stuckey. He tells Jess that his mother will meet them at Adelaide’s home but refuses to answer any of Jess’s questions about what is happening. As they pull away from the church, Jess sees some men place someone inside a waiting car.
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
The novel begins in nonchronological order, opening with scenes that will be revisited later in the novel as well as with exposition related to Chambliss’s history in the town. This prepares readers for how the novel will make use of flashbacks and nonlinear structure to create tension, which echoes a key theme: The Dangers of Secrets and Silence. For instance, Adelaide does not initially reveal any information about the circumstances of Stump’s death, though her narrative hints that there will be parallels or connections between his death and that of Molly Jameson. Adelaide’s position as an insider-turned-outsider lends weight to her perspective, characterizing her as an insightful and wise individual whose as-yet unspoken knowledge will likely prove vital at a later point in the plot.
Jess’s narration builds upon the theme of secrecy. His reiteration of his mother’s warning against spying on adults foreshadows the central conflict, which emerges at the end of this section. Jess’s spying suggests that he senses that adults intentionally keep certain information from children. His innocent curiosity motivates him to spy on the church service, though the temptation of seeking out that which has been explicitly forbidden is also a great motivator. Importantly, Jess has no ill intentions and does not mean to harm anyone by his disobedience. Nevertheless, he is acutely aware that his actions are forbidden and knows that he will face repercussions if he is caught. He is therefore forced to trust Joe Bill to stay silent to ensure that he escapes punishment. The splinter that he acquires, however, threatens to give him away, as his mother is suspicious of the explanation that Jess gives about how he obtained it. In this way, Cash suggests secrecy’s tendency to snowball, as the efforts of Julie to keep him in the dark spark forbidden behavior on Jess’s part that must itself be kept secret.
Another important secret that Jess keeps from his mother underscores the unintended consequences of secrecy and silence: that it was he, not Stump, whom she heard cry “Mama” during the church service. This detail places Jess in a difficult situation: To tell her the truth would be to reveal that he was indeed spying and thus to be subjected to whatever punishment might follow. However, he fears that Julie’s misunderstanding of the situation will place Stump in further danger. Because he is a child—albeit an empathetic and caring one—he opts for self-preservation and keeps his secret.
Indeed, Jess’s narration is greatly shaped by his age, which lends another dimension to the theme of silence and secrecy. Because he is only nine, he does not understand many of the aspects of the circumstances he finds himself in. For instance, his mother has not given him any information about the church, so he does not understand that it is a charismatic congregation, the beliefs and practices of which are considered controversial, even within the community. He tries to make sense of what he witnesses with his eyes and is left to conclude that the congregation intends to harm Stump. Similarly, he does not understand that the noises that come from his mother’s bedroom indicate that she is having sex, nor does he realize that she is engaged in an extramarital affair with Chambliss. Without adult explanation or life experience, Jess is left to interpret his circumstances based on only the information he can take in through his senses. Readers must therefore read between the lines to understand what Jess is saying—not because he is intentionally withholding information but simply because he does not understand what is happening. The centrality of silence to the novel finds literal embodiment in Jess’s brother, who does not speak due to an undiagnosed disability.
One theme that emerges through the gaps in Jess’s narration is The Influence of Religious Fervor. Jess, though he does not have a reason to, does not trust Chambliss. He was suspicious of him when he suddenly emerged from his mother’s bedroom and is afraid of his scarred skin, which was burned in a fire. Though the burns predate Chambliss’s career as a minister, they visually evoke the “baptism of fire” associated with baptism by the Holy Spirit in charismatic Christianity, thus suggesting the latter’s dangers. More prosaically, they also foreshadow the revelations about Chambliss’s unsavory past, which his awestruck congregants have little interest in uncovering. Finally, the snake that Jess’s father (Ben Hall) kills is reminiscent of the snake that bit Molly years prior, per Adelaide’s narrative. Ben has no illusions about the dangers of snakes, creating a sharp contrast between him and Chambliss, his wife’s paramour, who both utilizes poisonous snakes in his religious practice and delights in torturing Adelaide with them. As the novel unfolds, snakes will function metaphorically to construct the character of Chambliss.
