Snakewoman of Little Egypt

by Robert Hellenga

A novel packed with wit, substance, and emotional depth, Snakewoman of Little Egypt delivers Robert Hellenga at the top of his form.

On the morning of her release from prison, Sunny, who grew up in a snakehandling church in the Little Egypt region of Southern Illinois, rents a garage apartment from Jackson. She's been serving a five-year sentence for shooting, but not killing, her husband, the pastor of the Church of the Burning Bush with Signs Following, after he forced her at gunpoint to put her arm in a box of rattlesnakes.

Sunny and Jackson become lovers, but they're pulled in different directions. Sunny, drawn to science and eager to put her snake handling past behind her, enrolls at the university. Jackson, however, takes a professional interest in the religious ecstasy exhibited by the snakehandlers. Push comes to shove in a novel packed with wit, substance, and emotional depth. Snakewoman of Little Egypt delivers Robert Hellenga at the top of his form.

Genres: Fiction, Religion, Contemporary, Audiobook, Book Club, Adult

352 pages, Hardcover

First published August 2, 2010

About the author

Robert Hellenga was an American novelist, essayist, and short story author.
His eight novels included The Sixteen Pleasures, The Fall of a Sparrow, Blues Lessons, Philosophy Made Simple, The Italian Lover, Snakewoman of Little Egypt, The Confessions of Frances Godwin and Love, Death, & Rare Books. In addition to these works, he wrote a novella, Six Weeks in Verona, along with a collection of short stories in The Truth About Death and Other Stories. Hellenga also published scholarly essays and literary or travel essays in various venues, including The National Geographic Traveler, The New York Times Sophisticated Traveler, and The Gettysburg Review.
Hellenga was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and grew up in Milwaukee and Three Oaks, Michigan. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Michigan and his graduate work at the Queen’s University of Belfast, the University of North Carolina, and Princeton University. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton and began teaching English literature at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, in 1968. In 1973–74 he was co-director of the ACM Seminar in the Humanities at the Newberry Library in Chicago, and in 1982–83 he directed the ACM Florence programs in Florence, Italy. He also worked and studied in Bologna, Verona, and Rome. He was distinguished writer in residence and professor emeritus at Knox College. Hellenga was married and had three daughters.
Hellenga received awards for his fiction from the Illinois Arts Council and from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Sixteen Pleasures received The Society of Midland Authors Award for Fiction published in 1994. The Fall of a Sparrow was included in the Los Angeles Times list of the "Best Fiction of 1998" and the Publishers Weekly list of the "Best 98 Books." Snakewoman of Little Egypt, was included in The Washington Post's list of "The Best Novels of 2010" and Kirkus Reviews' list of "2010 Best Fiction: The Top 25." The audio version of Snakewoman was a 2011 Audie Award Winner for Literary Fiction. The Confessions of Frances Godwin received The Society of Midland Authors' Award for fiction published in 2014.
Hellenga died of neuroendocrine cancer on July 18, 2020, at his home in Galesburg, Illinois.

Reviews

[Joanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I saw a book with "Little Egypt" in the title, I had get it out of the library. I grew up in Little Egypt. And then in Chapter Two, Rosiclare got mentioned. Rosiclare! My little Rosiclare where I went to school from Kindergarten through grade 12, home of my first library, Flurospar Days, Bob's Food Mart, the United Methodist Church, where I earned chocolate for reciting the books of the Bible in order. Rosiclare! I became less enthralled as the book progressed.

The plot line centers on the relationship between Sunny, a southern Illinois native with an exotic snake-handling background, and Jackson, an anthropologist and professor who teaches in an upstate Illinois college. Jackson brings Sunny home from prison, where she's served her time for shooting her husband, to fulfill a promise made to her dead uncle. We are told right off the bat that Sunny is justified: her husband tried to force her hand into the snakebox of pit vipers used in his religious services. Within a couple of chapters, Sunny and Jackson are living in connubial bliss, with Jackson teaching classes and Sunny wowing his colleagues with her intelligence, her feisty independence - and of course her background with snakes.

If I'd grown up anywhere else in the U.S., I might have enjoyed this book. But I didn't grow up somewhere else. I grew up in Elizabethtown, Illinois, smack in the middle of Hellenga's Little Egypt. If there were snake handlers there, I never heard of them. Fundamentalists, yes: countless back country churches featuring hellfire and damnation and sweaty preachers who gestured and spoke with compelling eloquence; healing services, speaking in tongues, little girls in pretty dresses and little boys in miniature suits; songs and prayers, hands raised in ecstasy, and old pianos played with passion and skill. But no snake handlers.

Perhaps this shouldn't matter. Maybe I should simply suspend my disbelief and enjoy the story. But I can't.

I can't imagine a back country Hardin County girl so easily finding her feet in the pretentious world of small university academia. Small university academia repesents another familiar world for me. I was married for 20 years to a man who taught at a small university in a small town. The parties we went to featured smart, well-educated malcontents who wished they had landed somewhere smarter, somewhere more ambitious, somewhere cooler. Hymns were never sung. Dylan was, by half drunk professors wondering how and when they'd gotten oldish and fattish and grayish. I never met anyone as appealing as Sunny.

And then there's the romantic skeptic in me. Even with all her delightful qualities, how does Sunny manage to so easily latch on to not one but TWO smart, desirable me who have jobs?! It's a feat I can't accomplish.

The author gives credit to Joanna Tweedy, a native of Little Egypt, in his acknowledgments. Do I know Joanna Tweedy? In an area with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants, it's quite possible. So I googled her: "Joanna Beth Tweedy was born and raised in a foothilled fraction of the world leapfrogged betwixt the Ozarks and Appalachia." Say, what?

I find myself wanting to lecture the author: You got it WRONG! Please - write about my world. Let me see my personal corner of Illinois in print. But at least send your characters to the one restaurant we all go to: the E-Town River Restaurant.

[Jeanette · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's actually a 3.5 star, at least. But I could not round it up because I also think it is a bit too long. Robert Hellenga could have left out some of the excess embroidery and third row of trim on this quite substantial coverlet.

Reading this only because the title included "Little Egypt" which is a name give to a portion of lowest Illinois- I found a new author that I like. I will definitely be reading more of his.

This has great "eyes". And extremely diverse and incredibly quirky characters. But not at all of low intelligence. Any of them. They may be a snake handling preacher and ex-husband of our protagonist who now operates out of a deserted gas station turned Church, or a returned from the Congo anthropology professor who becomes your landlord and lover. Or his professor friend who becomes the new BFF. There's a great character called DX too. And those are only some of the people characters. We have a dog, squirrels, and many snakes as part of the story. One of the timber rattlers has two heads. He becomes a kind of star.

It's about triumphant or calming ceremony and human love for ritual. Within and/or without a religion. It's about love and bonding for a couple in a marriage. Or not. It's about finding your life's work. And each and every one of the characters has good qualities. Even Earl.

There's tons of meat for such a backward and scrumptiously described location on top of it. TF is Southern Illinois University. Sauger is the fishing. Deer is the hunting. But that is only in majority. Sunny (renamed herself after she quit being Willa) is ON THE RISE.

Before I started this book, I had an inkling I was entering a grit lit piece. Not at all. This is nearly the opposite. Good intent people here within not always great or optimal circumstances. And yet, like in life, there is almost always a point where there is "trouble in the forest".

Almost 4 stars. It would have been completely 4 star if the drag had not occurred about 2/3rds of the way through during the DX service. Or if the entire timpani lesson and descriptions were not so verbose. Yes, we get the point that Sunny has very numerous and inexhaustible interests to grow.

Here's a great "WOMAN is rising piece"- if that's what may interest you. I do recommend this one. It's got a lot of verve and the type of aspiration that left most novels back in the 1990's, never to be seen again. Inspiration and aspiration being so out of favor.

So come back to 1999 and the turn of the 21st century. Come down to Little Egypt. Learning French, how to play the kettle drums, and all means of heavy equipment or earth moving machines may also be in the works.

[Chrissie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was how I felt in the beginning: life is good when I have a good book! :0)

But by the end it had totally fizzled. :0(

Why? Way too much about religious fanatics and snake-handlers. I say if you are bitten by a snake go to the doctor, don't expect that God will save you - even if you are a good person! Basically this is a coming of age story, except that the characters are in their 30s and one is 40.

You could also sum up the book with these words: Trampled woman finds her identity and becomes strong. Am I being too blunt?

Excellent narration by Coleen Marlo.

Other books by this author are MUCH better.

[Booknblues · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much about Robert Hellenga's Snakewoman of Little Egypt appeals to me. He creates intriguing characters, an interesting and fast moving plot, his use of blues music and food throughout the story and his fascinating descriptions of such things as a snake roundup and a NHI proposal process.

The story divides between Sunny's story told in the first person and Jackson Carter Jones told in the third person. Sunny is a woman who has just been released from prison for shooting her husband who forced her to put her had in a basket of poisonous snakes and Jackson Carter Jones is a professor of anthropology at Thomas Ford University in Illinois. They meet because Sunny's uncle has arranged for her to live in the apartment above Jackson's garage while she attends Thomas Ford.

They are both at a sort of crossroads of their lives and unsure of which direction their path will take them. Jackson who has Lyme disease and has just turned 40 has been debating if he should return to the Congo where he previously did research with the Pygmies or Mbuti and went native with them.

Sunny has used prison as away in which to escape her husband who is a pastor for the snake handling Church of the Burning Bush with Signs Following. She received her GED in prison and is anxious to continue her education. How their lives intersect is really the essence of the story and it is much more fascinating than it sounds.

The reader can expect some twists and turns along the way and really some interesting writing as the snake roundup by the biology department for a study:

"We faced each other __snakes and humans__like two football teams facing each other across the line of scrimmage, waiting for the referee to blow his whistle, or the quarterback to call the play. But no one moved. Not for a long time. I didn't know what the others were thinking, but I was thinking of a verse from the Bible:"There are three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, for which I know not: the way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid."

I think perhaps that Snakewoman of Little Egypt is not a book that will have universal appeal because of lengthy esoteric descriptions and the appeal and choices of the characters, but I found I couldn't put it down and loved it.

[Susan (aka Just My Op) · Rating 3 out of 5]

The snake woman, aka Willa Fern aka Sunny, shot her husband and served time. And when she got out of prison, it was to an entirely new life with an anthropologist who used to live in Africa. The trouble is that Sunny's old life, married to the abusive preacher of the snake-handling and strychnine-drinking Church of the Burning Bush with Signs Following, kept interrupting her new life.

I really didn't much care for the anthropologist, Jackson, in the beginning, but he became a more interesting character further into the book. He hid behind his anthropology when it was convenient but went native, whether in Africa or the U.S., when it suited him. And he had Lyme disease. Lord knows he had Lyme disease. I read a thousand times (or maybe it just seemed that way) that he had Lyme disease.

I liked the way the story switched between third person and Sunny's first person narrative. I really liked reading about Sunny's husband, Earl. He was abusive but quick to forgive, backed away from God sometimes, then fully embraced his religion again. He and Sunny were both complex, entertaining characters.

As far as action, there wasn't a lot of it. For detail, there was often too much for my taste. The snake-handling and the scientific bits about snakes were interesting. There were a couple of places that made me really, really glad I'm a vegetarian. Occasionally, I was bored. In the end, I enjoyed and liked the story, but didn't love it.

Thank you to the publisher for providing a copy of this book.

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the idea of this book more than I actually liked the experience of reading the book. The basic premise is this: the snakewoman of the title is leaving prison as the story begins. She has spent 6 years there for shooting her Pentecostal pastor husband after he forced her to stick her hand in a box of rattlesnakes. Her recently deceased uncle has left her all his possessions in a different town, and she moves into his old apartment on the property of a college anthropology professor, where she takes up her uncle's old post as the property caretaker. She quickly begins an affair with the professor, and while she is interested in leaving behind the ways of her charismatic Pentecostal background in favor of getting an education and joining the mainstream modern world, the anthropologist is intensely drawn to the idea of her snake-handling past.

I found the contrast of the lovers' conflicting expectations for the woman's future to be a fascinating subject, but I kept wishing that Daniel Woodrell had written this novel instead. I just didn't find Sunny, the main character, to be a believable backwoods gal heading into the modern world. She was supposed to be this kind of tough, driven person, but her character frequently seemed too dopey somehow. Part of the novel is written 1st person in her voice, and those were the parts that kind of grated on me. I didn't feel the author had as much respect for Sunny as I wished he did. I did finish the book -- I really liked the idea of this story, but somehow it didn't gel for me.

[Mike Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This excellent novel weaves two stories together. One is the story of 40-something anthropologist Jackson, back in the U.S. after several years living with a pygmy tribe in Africa and missing the Forest and the people there. His story is told in the third person. The other story is that of the 30-something ex-con Sunny trying to re-build her life after escaping an abusive marriage to a small-town preacher in a church that practices the handling of venomous snakes. Her story is told in the first person.



This clearly and engagingly written novel tells of how Jackson and Sunny are both searching for meaning in their lives. One is trying to break from the past and the other is looking to re-capture it. They both hope that meaning can be found in things outside themselves, whether other people or activities like research or religion. The characters are fully human and totally believable. I suspect almost anyone can find something to relate to in this wonderful story.

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I would probably like talking to Robert Hellenga. I respect that he is interested in interesting things. But ugh why doesn't he have more self awareness about writing a novel that smells a bit too much of Salvation at Sand Mountain meets Pretty Woman? Bleergh it's a little creepy that the central character is clearly modeled on him... and that the novel revolves around said character sleeping with women from the two ethnographies that inspired the book. Yicky.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

In an earlier phase of life, I was involved enough in cultural anthropology to earn a bachelors degree in it from a very prestigious university. The intricacies of various societies and cultures still hold great fascination. And, as I have loved several books by Robert Hellenga, there was great anticipation in reading this novel. After all, it involved and anthropologist and references to not one, but two cultures (Mbuti and snake-handlers), a young woman recently released from prison after shooting her husband, biology research in Herpetology, culture and ideology, all at the turn of the millennium (or the year before, depending on who you believe.)

While the novel was interesting, it didn't grab in in quite the same way other novels of Hellenga's have (The Sixteen Pleasures being one of my all-time favorites.) I found myself a bit distracted, piecing together relationships and references to previous novels (remember Norma Jean, the elephant, in Philosophy Made Simple?), and not becoming fully immersed in Sunny and Jackson's world or them as characters. (I probably learned more than I ever wanted to about snakes and snake handling. Not my thing, but still fascinating.) Of the two main characters, Sunny perhaps reached out to me a bit more; Jackson being more of a sad-sack who came back to life when she entered his. Some of the science I learned/refreshed in her studies was a definite plus for me. Another odd aside: I just spent a few hours last Sunday wondering about timpani and how music was written for them etc. Thanks to Mr HEllega, I now actually understand a bit more.

Many thanks to LibraryThing and the Early Reviewers program, and to the publisher, who sent this book. And many thanks to Mr Hellenga for writing yet another book which took me to another place and taught me something in the reading.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was an engaging book throughout. I really liked Sunny, the main character, although I found Jackson (the other main character) kind of mysterious, sort of a "black box." I felt like I never really got to know him, but maybe that is intentional given his line of work. It's almost like we, the readers, ARE Jackson (the anthropologist), studying Jackson and trying to figure out his true feelings and motivations. It's almost like he is too academic to really get to know. Whereas I felt a kinship with Sunny throughout--she is my kind of character... down-to-earth, independent, real, hungry for knowledge, interested in everything, and in touch with her own feelings and able to communicate them well. I love how, despite her completely mismatched upbringing (it seems like she was really born at the wrong place and the wrong time), she ends up knowing what she wants and not letting anyone push her around. In fact it's a little hard to figure out where that independent spirit came from. Perhaps her prison time? She even hints at this herself... saying that the prison time was sort of a timeout from life where she was able to figure out what she wanted her future path to be.

Ultimately I think this book was about figuring out what you want out of life and going and getting it, which Sunny managed to be able to do despite being fresh out of prison. For her, life is an adventure.

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked the book up at my local Friends of the Library store, on audio CD. It was recommended (on the cover) by Mary Doria Russell. If she recommends a book or an author, that's enough endorsement for me. I did a little research since I had never heard that southern Illinois was known as "Little Egypt". This is the best explanation I found: http://www.illinoishistory.com/egypt.htm
I think I would never have read this without a good recommendation, because the title was so strange, but I really enjoyed the story and the narration. Both Sunny and Jackson were intriguing characters because they had led such unusual lives. Sunny grew up in southern Illinois, the part known as Little Egypt, and was married to a man who was the leader of a small church of Pentacostal (I'm assuming) Christians. They spoke in tongues, handled snakes, etc. He was abusive, leading Sunny to eventually attempt to kill him and end up in prison. When she got out of prison, she didn't head back home, she went to live in her uncle's home, where she met Jackson. Jackson was an anthropologist who had spent a great deal of time in remote Africa. The story goes from there, Sunny taking classes at the university, getting to know Jackson. All kinds of strange things happen, mostly due to Jackson taking an anthropological interest in Sunny's ex-husband. A bit of a train wreck, but a satisfying story.

[Tara Chevrestt · Rating 2 out of 5]

I made it exactly halfway thru this before calling it quits. If it wasn't a LT win requring a review, I would not have made it that far. Let me do a quick rehash of the almost nonexistant plot here: Woman grows up in one of those snake handling churches. Marries an abusive minister. Minister gets drunk one night and forces her to get serpent bit. Woman shoots minister. Woman goes to prison for five years, "backs away" from god, and meets Jackson, a man living alone, banging his married friend, obsessed with Africa and suffering lyme disease.

Sounds interesting as all get out but all that cool stuff happens in the beginning and then Sunny starts college.. and there will be an entire page or two devoted to what she learned in French class or biology. And Jackson is BORING. His parts are in third person and had me thinking of a Seinfield episode without the humor. He and his friends just ramble about everything from salad bags to wine to trees.

I enjoyed Sunny's first person POV when it popped up and the stuff about her church and demons and drinking poison was intriguing but there wasn't enough of it to keep me entertained.

[Book Concierge · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*

Willa Fern (Sunny) Cochrane has been in prison for 5 years for shooting (not killing) her husband. She claims it was self-defense; he held a gun to her head and forced her to put her arm in a box of rattlesnakes.

Professor Jackson Jones is recovering from Lyme disease, and a miasma that comes from leaving his love – the Mbuti tribe of Africa. His late caretaker was Sunny’s uncle and has made Jackson promise to care for her when she’s released.

This is a great premise for a novel, and I was completely hooked into the story from the beginning. But I felt Hellenga kept a bit too much distance between the reader and his characters. I wanted to know more about the WHY of what they did, and I didn’t get any answer to that. I was confused about some of their actions … again, why did they make certain choices or react certain ways. Instead I got a lot of information and miscellaneous facts – about serpents, or indigenous peoples in Africa, or field dressing a deer. Still the story kept me riveted, and there were twists in the plot line that I really didn’t expect. I would definitely read another book by Hellenga.

[Lynn Pribus · Rating 4 out of 5]

An offbeat and somewhat peculiar book about an offbeat, peculiar woman (Sunny) in her mid-30s who starts college in southern Illinois after being released from prison for shooting and wounding her really peculiar husband who is into fundamentalist snake-handling religion.

Little Egypt is a regionalism for southern Illinois and Sunny develops an academic interest in snakes after all the serpenting of her husband's religion; hence the title. Read by a woman who portrays Sunny as a good-natured hillbilly who is both smart and clever. The character sort of grows on you, although the book is more a slice of life than a plot driven novel.

Entertaining read.

[Denise · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I first started reading Snakewoman of Little Egypt I wasn't sure if I would finish it. Then I read a few more pages and I decided to continue. The best I can say for the book is that it was okay. The ending left me up in the air. I wasn't satisfied but yet it wasn't a story that I wanted to continue. If you want to know about snakes though this is the book to read! I don't think I would read it again, nor do I think I would really recommend it to anyone.

[Rebecca E Mentzer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe 3.5 stars. I volunteer with women who have experienced incarceration and I am not sure they would believe someone can get out of prison and immediately be accepted and embraced by others as Sunny was, and fit in so well, etc. So for that unbelievable part, I gave 3*s.

[Gary Butler · Rating 4 out of 5]

38th book read in 2013.

Number 88 out of 328 on my all time book list.

Follow the link below to see my video review:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLYf7N...

[Joan Colby · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book which ranges from the pygmies of Africa to Little Egypt in Southern Illinois and elsewhere. The characters are the anthropologist Jackson and Sunny the snakewoman who has been released from a woman’s prison after having shot Earl, her then husband for forcing her to put her arm in a box of poisonous snakes. Earl is a preacher and a snake handler in a fundamental Pentacostal church. Released from jail and through the beneficience of her late uncle, Sunny enrolls in college and inhabits her uncle’s old apartment on Jackson’s property. Soon Jackson and Sunny are involved with various conflicts arising. The novel is mesmerizing, switching from third to first person in various chapters and investing its people with distinct personalities. I met Bob Hellenga at a reading we both did for a blues festival and was captivated by his selection from his novel “Blues Lessons” which is now on my reading list. I decided to begin reading his work with Snakewoman as I’ve spent time in Little Egypt and am familiar with that culture. What a find, Hellenga is—a master of convincing dialog, his novel is both witty and profound.

[Erin Moxam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a few beefs with this book, but I'm still going to give it a 4 because it was very interesting. I will not do a good job of summarizing this. So there's Sunny, who just got out of jail for shooting her husband, who is leader of a snake handling church. Then there's Jackson, who is torn between his life as an anthropology professor and his previous life living with a tribe in Africa. What the heck, right? Well, it follows these two (and some others) and their relationship and there's a bunch of drama, of course. I loved the uniqueness of these characters and how their lives entwine. I love the snake handling church and the tribe in Africa, just really different lives and settings made it a really interesting read for me. What I didn't like was that sometimes it felt a bit like an information dump - I found the information interesting, so I forgive. And the Jackson point of view just kind of vanishes from the book, which was a little weird. Overall though, I enjoyed this a lot and looked forward to reading it. If you're looking for something a little different, this could be it.

[Renee West · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was well written it just didn't grab me like I like a story to. Interesting topics about weird evangelical church people who handle snakes and speak in tongues, I'm always fascinated by strange cult-like groups. There wasn't enough about them, they were more of a sidebar in the story and I would have wanted to delve more into their world. I guess that's a different book. I'm forever wary of a male being the voice of a female and I think some writers can do it really well but I wasn't impressed here. I liked that it was set in "Little Egypt" which I had never heard of (southern Illinois). Sunny was a strong female character, I just felt like she was a man's idea of what he wanted her to be.

[Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent look into religious communities that "handle snakes".

[John Meitner · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit interesting.

[Tamra · Rating 5 out of 5]

fascinating, well developed characters. They are like nobody I know but the story was compelling and the outcome unpredictable. I could not put it down

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really 3.5 stars! But it was a good story with a good female protagonist.

[Teddy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't read the synopsis of the book before starting it, so this really wasn't about what I thought it was about, but I quite enjoyed it. Interesting look at a very different life.

[Jo-jean Keller · Rating 4 out of 5]

I grew up hearing about snake handlers so it was interesting to read Hellenga's novel featuring them.

[Jenelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed this for some weird reason.

[KATHY · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good story well told. Very good.

[Jean Walton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to this on audible and enjoyed this unusual tale though parts of it made me shudder, particularly the thought of a two-headed snake.

[Taryn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hmmm.
Men should not write women in the image of their sexual fantasies.