Enjoyable, interesting, well-written, by an author at the top of his form. Like many Hellenga books, this one takes place in the American Midwest, but this is a strange Midwest, with snake-handling religious zealots, a small-town college professor who longs to go back to his anthropology research in Africa, a beautiful ex-convict who studies at the college and sleeps with the professor. Just the setup for the story makes me want to read it again. It's inventive, but also universal, a story of loss, love, and joie de vivre. I liked the book, but several of the premises were just too hard to swallow. Here's my list:1. A spunky but naive 35-year-old (female) ex-con. 2. The professors at the prestigious university she attends after being released from prison welcome her as a friend and colleague. An equal.3. Rampant infidelity. (But a man wrote it...what do you expect?)4. A well-respected anthropologist consciously chooses to stop observing and start participating in not just one, but two societies he is studying.
Do You like book Snakewoman Of Little Egypt (2010)?
An interesting look at a strange piece of Southern culture (there are many).
—bookworm49
The characters didn't really ring true for me... liked his other books more.
—thcjtrfg
Great for a book club because it generates lots of discussion.
—b33z
