Christian fundamentalism in America emerged a century ago, the faith of generations of immigrants who had experienced war and revolution, removal and upheaval. The Scots-Irish who had settled the South inherited both an evangelical legacy of abolitionism and social reform on the one hand, and complicity in human slavery and racial oppression on the other. This book brings the story of fundamentalism to life through the generations of the Rice family--immigrants, soldiers, farmers, slaveowners, refugees, and preachers. This is a work of history, memoir, and personal testimony about the...

Publisher's Weekly: A first novel packed with this much mesmerizing craziness is a rarity. A tale spanning four generations of the Dufore family of rural Esperance, Vt., Wilber's novel seems to have caromed off such influences as Twain, Vonnegut, Faulkner and even John Irving. Uncle Ab is doomed to burst into flames. Poor Davy is literally going soft and rotting like a piece of spoiled fruit. Bobby lives in dread of being hit by a meteor. Old Gran Marie hasn't slept in 70 years. Paul and his little son may have turned into trout. These idiosyncrasies form only a part of the patchwork heritage...