Prayers the Devil Answers
PRAYERS THE DEVIL ANSWERS is not a continuation of the Ballad series. This one is set in 1936 and is based on a real life story when a woman in Owensboro, Kentucky, served out the term of her late husband and officiated during a hanging.
McCrum can not resist oldtime superstitions, and she starts the book with one called the Dumb Supper, where young girls prepare a meal for their future husbands. Only two boys show up. During the ceremony the girls must not look at the table, they bring the silverware, plates and food to the table backwards. But one of them, Celia, drops a knife; when she picks it up, she looks at the table. Bad, bad luck.
We jump ahead to 1936 when Ellie, one of the girls at the Dumb Supper, is nursing her husband, who has pneumonia. She finally calls a doctor, whom they can't afford, but by then it's too late. He just happens to be sheriff of the country, having been elected three months early, thanks to some political gamesmanship. But he was a good sheriff. She gets the crazy idea to ask the chief commissioner for the job, so she can feed her two young boys. What seals the deal is when she shows him her scar from a dog bite. The dog had rabies and she branded the bite with a red hot poker, which possibly saved her life.
Next we meet Lonnie Varden, an artist who has been hired by the government to paint a mural in the post office. McCrum shows the preparations involved. You don't just paint the wall. He's going to paint an Indian attack on a local fort. But he has no idea what the fort looks like, so he goes to the schoolhouse to ask the teacher, Celia of course, if she has any historical pictures he can look at. She does. They start courting and eventually get married. Three years later they go for a walk, his wife looking for something beyond flowers and trees she can take pictures of with her new camera she got for Christmas. They go to “The Hawk's Wing” a cliff way up on the mountain where you can see forever. She walks out onto the cliff to get a better picture. He is wrestling with himself about how to tell her something he did. But instead of telling her, he pushes her off the cliff, and there are witnesses, other lovers out for a walk.
So then, the suspense involves when we're find out why he did it. He seemed like such a likable person. I'll admit I didn't think he did it. We're also wondering whether a nice little woman like Ellie will be able to hang him.
There's some questionable behavior at the end that just doesn't fit Ellie's character. I guess McCrumb is trying to tell us we're all capable of a mean streak.
McCrum can not resist oldtime superstitions, and she starts the book with one called the Dumb Supper, where young girls prepare a meal for their future husbands. Only two boys show up. During the ceremony the girls must not look at the table, they bring the silverware, plates and food to the table backwards. But one of them, Celia, drops a knife; when she picks it up, she looks at the table. Bad, bad luck.
We jump ahead to 1936 when Ellie, one of the girls at the Dumb Supper, is nursing her husband, who has pneumonia. She finally calls a doctor, whom they can't afford, but by then it's too late. He just happens to be sheriff of the country, having been elected three months early, thanks to some political gamesmanship. But he was a good sheriff. She gets the crazy idea to ask the chief commissioner for the job, so she can feed her two young boys. What seals the deal is when she shows him her scar from a dog bite. The dog had rabies and she branded the bite with a red hot poker, which possibly saved her life.
Next we meet Lonnie Varden, an artist who has been hired by the government to paint a mural in the post office. McCrum shows the preparations involved. You don't just paint the wall. He's going to paint an Indian attack on a local fort. But he has no idea what the fort looks like, so he goes to the schoolhouse to ask the teacher, Celia of course, if she has any historical pictures he can look at. She does. They start courting and eventually get married. Three years later they go for a walk, his wife looking for something beyond flowers and trees she can take pictures of with her new camera she got for Christmas. They go to “The Hawk's Wing” a cliff way up on the mountain where you can see forever. She walks out onto the cliff to get a better picture. He is wrestling with himself about how to tell her something he did. But instead of telling her, he pushes her off the cliff, and there are witnesses, other lovers out for a walk.
So then, the suspense involves when we're find out why he did it. He seemed like such a likable person. I'll admit I didn't think he did it. We're also wondering whether a nice little woman like Ellie will be able to hang him.
There's some questionable behavior at the end that just doesn't fit Ellie's character. I guess McCrumb is trying to tell us we're all capable of a mean streak.
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