Spotlight: Less the Horror than the Grace by Robert Owens Scott
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Genre: Women's Historical Fiction, Folk Horror, Old Gods Alive Today
A modern retelling of the Medusa myth set in a snake-handling church in Tennessee in the summer of 1920 as they vote to ratify women's suffrage for the entire United States.
It's the summer of 1920 and the hollers of Tennessee are dripping with humidity and tension, the electricity in the air broken only by storms and, if you're lucky, a travelling revival. The most famous features a lady preacher-who bestows the power on her listeners to become greater than themselves, and to handle the most venomous snakes without fear, investing them with a spiritual power they've never known.
Miles away in Nashville, the state legislature is about to vote on Women's Suffrage. If it passes in Tennessee, it will become law of the land. If it fails, the measure is all but dead. It's clear the measure will pass or fail on the slimmest margin of votes and both sides are upping the ante by playing dirty.
Elsewhere in Nashville, Theo Hood graduates from seminary. The son of his denomination's founder, he secretly plots his own course to bring religion into the future by embracing science and the new psychology of Dr. Freud, framing theology which gives new importance to listening to women.
Because of his unconventional views, Theo is sent as a "participant observer" to the mountain hamlet of Parthenon because strange reports have been filtering in. His long journey through the woods and into the mountains is wound with confusion and strange sightings, on top of which, Theo arrives just in time to attend the funeral of the pastor he was supposed to observe-who was killed by a snake bite. The popular female revivalist becomes the new pastor.
Welcomed into the home of the mayor, who's also the local state legislator, Theo can't help but notice a strange pall over the town. He finds an unexpected kinship with Minerva, the pastor, who seems to have unusual powers. As Theo becomes immersed in the life of the citizens-falling in love with one of them-he is confused by what seems to be supernatural goings-on. And listening, actually listening, to the women shocks him more than anything.
During the final push of the country's most famous suffragettes-including the leader, Bernadette Shaw, who can see death in the future of many-Theo fights to find out what's really going on, is allowed into the fellowship of women and nearly dies for it, before finding an unexpected ally as the legislators ready to vote for women's suffrage face what Theo knows to be a supernatural battle.
Excerpt
THUNDER
Chapter One
Glory
They say the great revival that swept Tennessee in the election year of 1920 started small, at a coal camp meeting in 1910, when a spirit-filled preacher of the fair sex handled snakes as a sign of divine power. The forces she wielded that night were ancient and unconditional. They were enlivened, terrified, and enthralled. What occurred had neither rational explanation nor practical means of control.
It simply was.
The miners needed an outlet, God knows. Strike talk ran rampant, though they couldn’t speak their grievances in the open. But they could sure as shit mutter curses against the owners, and they did, constantly. On Monday, that guy from Nashville – the one who looked more like a weasel than any man they ever saw – went on about how the bosses were honorable men who cared for them and their families more than any union ever would. He also let them know that those fine fellows wouldn’t hesitate to boot them all out on their ungrateful asses and watch those beloveds starve if they so much as thought about unionizing come January.
Winter felt a long way off on that sweltering July night. Clouds sealed the sky like wax on a canning jar. Thunder rumbled low, nagging, and unrelenting. Normally you’d hope for the rain to bust loose and bring a little blessed relief. That night, though, the heavy air held so much water you might drown and your body would wash down the mine shaft, where you’d slide on your butt to the pits of hell. The lightning flashes in the sky came from over the ridge, but everywhere the air felt full of electricity, crackling and dangerous.
Nobody heard tell of any revival meeting. The bosses harshly forbade public gatherings. Three men on a match would constitute a violation and be fired before they got a decent lungful. When the singing started, though, the men and boys young as eight who’d worked all day hacking coal from the earth headed over, curious, in ones and twos and threes. When the miners failed to show up at their shacks for dinner, the wives and sisters and kids too young to start their lives in the mines came looking.
Somebody started clapping along with the song. Women and children joined in. Pretty soon the tattoo spread throughout the crowd, which numbered thirty or forty, all told. You couldn’t see who led the singing, whether it was a man or a woman. The husky voice carried far and soared high and low.
A song that was familiar had to be a hymn. The grownups knew they’d heard it at church back when they’d bounced on their mothers’ knees. They couldn’t place it, exactly, but they sang along all the same. Words like “praise,” “glory,” and “hallelujah” rode on the simple tune, and by the chorus all the gathered souls sang as one.
The mine bosses sauntered out of their rough wood office, their faces stormier than the night. A goddamned public gathering right when we outlawed such goin’s on. Would they put up with such disobedience? They’d report this outrage to the owners in due time. Right then, though, they may as well try to stop the river during a flood. Instead of objecting, they joined in.
The religious among those present – and who lived in the Tennessee mountains in those days save good Christians? – could see what was happening plain as day: the Spirit was moving in their midst.
The song ended. Darkness descended. Silence fell along with it. Nobody spoke or even coughed. The children sat as hushed as the elders. After some amount of time – from a minute to an hour, depending on who told the story later – a voice sounded from the front. Rich and deep like a tenor, yet instantly recognizable as womanly.
“Glory,” it said. And again, “Glory.”
Then silence. Heavy. Pregnant. Even the cicadas and katydids liked to hold their breath.
“Holy,” said the voice. “Holy. Holy.”
Folks here and there repeated the words back to her, but nothing quelled the feeling of hushed awe.
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