Anthropology -- Salvation on Sand Mountain: snake handling and redemption in southern Appalachia by Dennis Covington

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, the author's Southern background and religious search drew him to these dangerous religious practices. Beginning as an observer, the author eventually became a snake handler and write about the background, meaning and his own experience of religious snake handling. The result was a book that was good in some aspects but bad in other aspects.

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Dennis Covington's Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake handling and redemption in southern Appalachia is a story of the author's spiritual journey in the early 1990's. Covington was a writer for the New York Times who was...
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