Description: One of the most powerful symbols throughout the world is that of the snake. No other creature generates as much fear, or inspires as much awe. We are fascinated by the snake's beauty and its strength, but also by its association with the sinister. This complex and often contradictory imagery powers Bard Young's unusual novel The Snake of God.

The author combines the story of a fiery 1947 sermon by Baptist preacher Eustace Leroy Thomas; an exposition of the phisolophical, literary, and theological significance of the snake; and recollections of summers spent in rural Alabama as a boy in the 1950s, swimming in a mill pond and exploring the nearby streams and woods with his brothers, to illustrate the mysterious allure of not only the snake, but of life itself. The author witnesses his younger brother's coming of age; discovers the deft skill with which Sarge, a black welder at his father's oil refinery, handles life in a segregated world; and observes the complicated function of religion in the lives of those around him.

Throughout, the snake plays an important role, sometimes subtle, sometimes obvious. In the darkness of the woods at nightfall, it is the sudden realization of a snake, perhaps real, perhaps imagined, watching, rising, that is the catalyst for a young boy's understanding of what fear is and what is truly worth fearing. Conversely, it is the sight of a snake which effectively transforms Sarge -- a physically powerful man, greatly respected not only by his charge, the young author, but by his white foreman -- into a helpless child.

The Snake of God is sure to remind readers of their own subconscious feelings about snakes, and to challenge them. For The Snake of God effectively and engagingly explores the complete psychology of the snake -- revealing the snake as not only a source of terror but of inspiration. Ultimately, the snake, in all of its complexity, mystery, beauty, and even horror, becomes a symbol for the complexity and mystery of life, and of God.

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