Novelist Wiley Cash is once again on the bestseller lists.
This time, it’s for the paperback version of A Land More Kind than Home, the UL Lafayette graduate’s debut novel.
The book’s about religious snake handling and what happens after a 9-year-old secretly witnesses a tragedy during a healing ritual in western North Carolina. It’s told through the eyes of three narrators – the 9-year-old Jess, a charismatic yet evil pastor named Carson Chambliss and the church matriarch, Adelaide Lyle.
The hardcover edition, published in April by William Morrow/Harper Collins, was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2012. It also hit the newspaper’s bestseller list.
Now, the paperback version of A Land More Kind than Home, released earlier this year, has become a bestseller. This week, it’s at No. 26 on this week’s New York Times’ trade paperback list.
A Land More Kind than Home, which won the John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger Award from the Crime Writers Association of America, is also a hit with critics.
The Miami Herald says the book is: “A lyrical, poignant debut that melds crime fiction with Southern Gothic for an emotional story about two brothers.”
Cash, a North Carolina native who lives in West Virginia, said his original goal was simply to get the novel written and published. The book’s success has simply been an added bonus.
“As soon as it sold, I decided that was going to be the high water mark of the whole experience. And no matter what happened, good or bad, after that moment, it wouldn’t be up, it wouldn’t down, just all straight across,” Cash said.
Cash, who has spent much of the last year on a national book tour promoting A Land More Kind than Home, recently wrapped work on the manuscript for his second novel. No publication date has been set, but the author says it’s about a washed up minor league baseball player who kidnaps his daughters from a foster home.