The Homecoming of Samuel Lake
A bewitching debut novel in the vein of the much-loved classic Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Café.It's 1956 and Samuel Lake, a handsome preacher, is voted out of his ministry by yet another congregation, disappointed by his relentless pleas for them to live more charitable lives. Out of options and out of pocket, Samuel and his family are forced to move in with their Arkansas in-laws, the rambunctious Moses clan.At first they thrive in the unruly sea of relatives – Willa, Samuel's wife, runs the bar for Grandma Calla, while the boys, Noble and Bienville, run riot through the surrounding countryside. But when Swan, their formidable but loveable 11-year-old tomboy, crosses the path of neighbour Raz Ballenger, things take a turn for the worse.Raz Ballenger, horse trainer, is a man who rules both his family and his animals through terror. Used to instant obedience, he is insulted when Swan leaps to his son defence, an act that sets a whole chain of unexpected and terrible events into motion…
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Jenny Wingfield
The Homecoming of Samuel Lake
For Taylor, Amy, and Lori—who never once said they wished I was normal.
For Jim, Ruth, Clif, and Hal—who probably said it, but not where I could hear.
And for Charlie and Leon—because.
Contents
Chapter 1
John Moses couldn’t have chosen a worse day, or a…
Chapter 2
This is the way it happened.
Chapter 3
Kinfolk started pouring in early the next morning. Pulling up…
Chapter 4
The first hour was the worst. Willadee’s brothers kept the…
Chapter 5
Sometimes, when Geraldine Ballenger wasn’t trying to think, but was…
Chapter 6
Uncle Toy had not spoken to Swan once since the…
Chapter 7
The little lane wound and twisted and tapered down to…
Chapter 8
The bed Swan slept in was so high she always…
Chapter 9
Bernice could hardly stand the way she felt the next…
Chapter 10
The way you trained a horse was, you taught it…
Chapter 11
Swan and her brothers had given up playing War Spies…
Chapter 12
Ras Ballenger had better things to do with his day…
Chapter 13
Bernice was wise enough not go on too much about…
Chapter 14
Samuel was out on the Macedonia highway, heading for the…
Chapter 15
On the first Friday in July, Odell Pritchett called from…
Chapter 16
Blade had no idea how long it would take for…
Chapter 17
Sheriff Early Meeks was born prematurely, back at the turn…
Chapter 18
In Blade’s dreams, he was running along the edge of…
Chapter 19
Ras knew that pretty soon, unless he could figure some…
Chapter 20
At breakfast, Samuel asked the rest of the family whether…
Chapter 21
As soon as Blade realized what was up, he lit…
Chapter 22
Willadee knew that Samuel was going to get a cool…
Chapter 23
What Swan intended to do was rescue Blade Ballenger. It…
Chapter 24
Willadee saw them coming when they topped a rise far…
Chapter 25
Swan was dead asleep. The little scuffling sounds of someone…
Chapter 26
Toy woke up around four o’clock that afternoon, not because…
Chapter 27
Time rocked on.
Chapter 28
The first thing Toy did after he got to his…
Chapter 29
Ras Ballenger didn’t think much of people in general, and…
Chapter 30
Millard Hempstead and his buddy, Scotty Dumas (who lived in…
Chapter 31
The surgery was tricky and took hours. According to Doc…
Chapter 32
It wasn’t so much decided that Willadee would take over…
Chapter 33
They’d never had a fight before. They’d never even had…
Chapter 34
“How long are you intending for this revival to run?”…
Chapter 35
At dawn, when Willadee dragged herself up the stairs and…
Chapter 36
February rolled around, and God still hadn’t shown Samuel what…
Chapter 37
Willadee had started supper before she left to get Blade,…
Chapter 38
Swan was in a dark place. A deeply dark place,…
Chapter 39
Out in the yard, Samuel was still waving his arms…
Chapter 40
Calla grieved.
Chapter 41
Nobody believed Swan about the mice. They didn’t believe that…
Behind the Scenes
‘They’re My Family After All’
‘Love or Loathe’
What to Read Next
Acknowledgments
About the Type
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter 1
Columbia County, Arkansas, 1956
John Moses couldn’t have chosen a worse day, or a worse way to die, if he’d planned it for a lifetime. Which was possible. He was contrary as a mule. It was the weekend of the Moses family reunion, and everything was perfect—or at least perfectly normal—until John went and ruined it.
The reunion was always held the first Sunday in June. It had been that way forever. It was tradition. And John Moses had a thing about tradition. Every year or so, his daughter, Willadee (who lived way off down in Louisiana), would ask him to change the reunion date to the second Sunday in June, or the first Sunday in July, but John had a stock answer.
“I’d rather burn in Hell.”
Willadee would remind her father that he didn’t believe in Hell, and John would remind her that it was God he didn’t believe in, the vote was still out about Hell. Then he would throw in that the worst thing about it was, if there did happen to be a hell, Willadee’s husband, Samuel Lake, would land there right beside him, since he was a preacher, and everybody knew that preachers (especially Methodists, like Samuel) were the vilest bunch of bandits alive.
Willadee never argued with her daddy, but the thing was, annual conference started the first Sunday in June. That was when all the Methodist ministers in Louisiana found out from their district superintendents how satisfied or dissatisfied their congregations had been that past year, and whether they were going to get to stay in one place or have to move.
Usually, Samuel would have to move. He was the kind who ruffled a lot of feathers. Not on purpose, mind you. He just went along doing what he thought was right—which included driving out into the boonies on Sunday mornings, and loading up his old rattletrap car with poor people (sometimes ragged, barefoot poor people), and hauling them into town for services. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d had separate services, one for the folks from the boonies and one for fine, upright citizens whose clothes and shoes were presentable enough to get them into Heaven, no questions asked. But Samuel Lake was of the bothersome conviction that God loved everybody the same. Add this to the fact that he preached with what some considered undue fervor, frequently thumping the pulpit for emphasis and saying things like “If you believe that, say ‘AMEN’!” when he knew full well that Methodists were trying to give up that sort of thing, and you can see what his churches were up against.
