Book Review: Salvation on Sand Mountain by Dennis Covington

Introduction

Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia by Dennis Covington tells the story of religious snake handling and strychnine drinking in Appalachia. Though the author was a journalist covering the 1992 attempted murder trial of a snake-handling preacher, his Southern background and personal religious search drew him to these dangerous religious practices. Beginning as an observer, Covington eventually became a snake handler himself and wrote about the background, meaning, and his own experience of the practice. The result is a book that is strong in some respects and weak in others.

Overview of the Book and Its Subject

Dennis Covington's Salvation on Sand Mountain is a story of the author's spiritual journey in the early 1990s. Covington was a writer for the New York Times covering the 1992 trial of Glenn Summerford, a snake-handling preacher convicted of attempting to murder his wife with snakes and sentenced to 99 years in prison (Covington, 2009, p. 1). While covering the trial, Covington met members of Summerford's church and was drawn to them because of his own unique background: he had been raised in Appalachia and was already familiar with snake handling before the assignment.

As Covington and the snake handlers explain, practitioners hold venomous snakes and drink strychnine based on a passage from the Bible: "In my name they shall cast out devils, they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them" (Covington, 2009, p. 17). For snake handlers, handling venomous snakes and drinking strychnine are ways of expressing their faith in God and their belief that God protects his faithful followers from harm. During these rituals, believers sometimes "speak in tongues" (Covington, 2009, pp. 24–25) and display expressions of ecstasy, caught up entirely in religious fervor (Covington, 2009, p. 79).

As Covington explains, this practice arose because immigrants—particularly Scotch-Irish immigrants—left Eastern cities and moved into Appalachia during the 18th century (Covington, 2009, p. 84). In Appalachia, which was largely removed from modern life, some of these people developed intensely fundamentalist religious ideas. As industrialization began to reach Appalachia in the 19th century, certain fundamentalists reacted against modernism by becoming even more fervent in their beliefs. Snake handling was one expression of this fervency; it survives to this day but is dying out as the South continues to modernize (Covington, 2009, pp. 84–88).

Covington's Journey from Journalist to Snake Handler

At that point in his life, Covington felt spiritually adrift and was drawn to the church members because he was seeking "what I had experienced growing up in that odd Methodist church in East Lake" (Covington, 2009, pp. 55–56). He began attending services at Summerford's church, "The Church of Jesus With Signs Following," housed in an old converted gas station in Scottsboro, Alabama, and found himself increasingly absorbed in their form of worship (Covington, 2009, p. 110). His interest deepened to the point that he also attended snake-handling services in Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia.

Throughout the book, Covington moves through several distinct roles: journalist covering a trial, deeply engaged observer at church services, genealogist investigating possible snake-handling ancestry in his own family, active snake handler, and finally someone driven out of the church for defending women's standing. In the end, he abandons snake handling because, as he puts it, "Knowing where you come from is one thing, but it's suicide to stay there" (Covington, 2009, p. 206).

Strengths of Covington's Approach

Covington's approach is effective in several important ways. First, because of his background as a Southerner of Scotch-Irish heritage, he treats the snake handlers with genuine respect rather than dismissing them as fanatics. Second, he is able to offer an educated insider's perspective on why this dying religious practice persists among poor, uneducated communities, explaining that "The more faith you extend, the more power is released. It's an inexhaustible, eternally renewable resource. It's the only power some of these people have" (Covington, 2009, p. 168).

Third, Covington writes candidly about his own life and spiritual journey, including his own experience of handling snakes: "I knew then why the handlers took up serpents. There is power in the act of disappearing; there is victory in the loss of self. It must be close to our conception of paradise, what it's like before you're born or after you die" (Covington, 2009, pp. 169–170). Finally, his skill as a writer gives the narrative a sinuous, snake-like quality: he moves from his own point of view and admitted religious biases, to letting the snake handlers speak for themselves, to recounting Summerford's trial, to tracing Appalachian history, to exploring his own genealogical roots, to describing his attendance at services, to his eventual participation in snake handling, and finally to his expulsion from the church. For all these reasons, the book offers a unique and deeply personal window into an obscure and dangerous religious practice.

Covington's approach is also flawed in several ways, primarily because he abandons the virtues of good journalism. First, he starts with a clearly defined subject but gradually makes himself the center of his own narrative—something a journalist is not supposed to do. Second, he loses journalistic objectivity and fails to support key claims with evidence. For example, he writes, "The lure of the secular and worldly in a region once characterized as the Bible Belt has left a residue of rootlessness, anxiety, and lawlessness" (Covington, 2009, p. 24)—a sweeping conclusion offered without any objective supporting facts, appearing to stem from his own religious bias rather than documented research.

Conclusion

Rooted in the biblical injunction that believers "shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them," this unusual religious practice generates states of ecstasy in participants—poor, uneducated people proving their faith in God's protection, drawing closer to the divine, losing themselves in the moment, and experiencing a rare sense of power. Covington shares in these experiences and learns from them, though he is eventually driven from the church for defending women. The book succeeds as a unique and intimately personal account of Appalachian religious culture; it falls short, however, as a work of journalism, sacrificing objectivity and evidentiary rigor for personal narrative and spiritual reflection.

Covington, D. (2009). Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake handling and redemption in southern Appalachia. Philadelphia, PA: Da Capo Press.