About the Book
In this rollicking memoir, Diane Wilson--a Texas Gulf Coast shrimper and the author of the highly acclaimed An Unreasonable Woman--takes readers back to her childhood in rural Texas and into her family of Holy Rollers. By night at tent revivals, Wilson gets religion from Brother Dynamite, an ex-con who finds Jesus in a baloney sandwich and handles masses of squirming poisonous snakes under the protection of the Holy Ghost. By day, Wilson scratches secret messages to Jesus into the paint on her windowsill and lies down in the middle of the road to see how long she can sleep in between passing trucks.
Holy Roller is a fast-paced, hilarious, sometimes shocking experience readers won't soon forget. It is the prequel to Wilson's first book, telling the story of the Texas childhood of a fierce little girl who will grow up to become An Unreasonable Woman, take on Big Industry, and win. One of the best Southern writers of her generation, Wilson's voice twangs with a style and accent all its own, as true and individual as her boundless originality and wild youth.
Review :
"Booklist-"When an international chemical company nearly destroyed the Gulf Coast bay from which she eked out a living as a shrimper, Wilson's pursuit of the polluters was nearly messianic in its fervor, as recorded in "An Unreasonable Woman" (2005). Brought up by a zealous family of Pentecostal believers, Wilson comes by her sense of moral outrage at blatant injustice naturally. Churchgoing was more than an occasional Sunday morning outing; it was a 24/7 occupation overseen by a grandmother who judged every aspect of life according to a strict and literal interpretation of the scriptures. In Wilson's provocative memoir of life in the Texas Bible Belt of the 1950s, snake-handling preachers, fitful parishioners speaking in tongues, and money-hungry radio evangelists share equal billing with corrupt game wardens, outlaw fishermen, and less-than-devout male relatives whose "back-sliding" ways give their womenfolk immense cause for concern. Through a vividly kaleidoscopic voice that captures the intensity of fanatical religious rapture with pitch-perfect accuracy, Wilson exuberantly animates a feverish time, a frenetic place, and its fiery people.
"Library Journal" (starred review)-[This] vivid memoir...recollects childhood in the context--well, in the clutches--of all-encompassing religion. Wilson's fierce determination and passion characterized her first memoir, "An Unreasonable Woman", about her David vs. Goliath fight against a polluting Texas chemical company. Now she delves into her childhood in a hardscrabble Pentecostal shrimping family, surrounded by fire-and-brimstone preachers, radio evangelists, tongue-speakers, snake-handlers, and her own relatives--believing women and fallen-away men. Wilson's prose is breathtaking in its dexterity and blunt poetry, as when she recounts being conscripted as a scout to accompany her grandfather and Aunt Patty, under cover of night, to break into a game warden's riverside shack in pursuit of an incriminating gun. Wilson evokes in her rural Gulf Coast setting an exotic place at the intersection of transcendence and squalor, coated in oyster dust and the conviction that God saves (the Pentecostal believers, and no one else). Both books are recommended for public libraries, and Wilson's is essential.
"The Texas Observer"-The myth of childhood is that it's a land of innocence, before mortality and responsibility have become comprehensible concepts, much less heavy-handed laws. But another word for innocence is ignorance, and ignorance is a vacuum that will be filled with whatever's around, be it boogeymen and monsters or heffalumps and woozles. For Diane Wilson, childhood was populated by devils and ghosts, holy and otherwise. "Holy Roller" describes Wilson's Pentecostal upbringing in the tiny fishing town of Seadrift, Texas, where residents were ruled by poverty, labor, elaborate religious mores, and corrupt authorities. Despite that potentially oppressive litany, the book is a delight. Wilson's world, at least to this reader, registers as exotic and bizarre, full of hysterical preachers and wild-eyed snake-handlers. It speeds along in a language of pure poetry, a rhythmic patois rich with the acute senses of childhood. And unlike most memoirs, "Holy Roller" has a murder-mystery subplot to goose the pace.......Wilson spends most of her childhood either at church or in the company of her many caretakers, of whom Grandma is one. There's also her mother, described as a "serious serious Christian woman," but one for whom work takes precedence over worship: "She could have two lines of wash strung out before the pastor's wife said Deuteronomy or Ecclesiastes."Shuttled from place to place, young Wilson learns to keep quiet and follow orders. This works fairly well until Wilson's uncle, Archie Don, goes missing just as another shrimper on Archie's boat is mysteriously shot dead at sea. Chief enlists young Diane to help him track down what turns out to be Archie Don's corpse--and then his killer--nearly getting her killed in the process....
""Holy Roller" Rocks. It never slows down. It flies. It's required.We Baptists always had a notion that we were missing something that our Holiness brethren and sisters were in on. Turns out we were right.And little did we know. And besides all that, any page of "Holy Roller" can be studied a thousand years from now to see how a very alive segment of our population lived.Try this: Read the first sentence of each chapter. It'll take you less than two minutes. Next thing you know you'll be heading to the cash register."--Clyde Edgerton, author of "Walking Across Egypt, The Bible Salesman", and "Raney"
"How in the world does Texas turn out so many sassy, silver-tongued agitators: Ann Richards, Molly Ivins--and now, Diane Wilson. "Holy Roller" answers that question. It made me laugh out loud many times--even as I cringed with alarm for the young girl Wilson at the mercy of the lunatic antics of cuckolded game wardens and snake handling convicts. Readers who love Harper Lee, Carson McCullers, or Flannery O'Connor will savor and admire this mesmerizing tale of growing up among shrimpers on the Texas bayous."--Lisa Alther, best-selling author of "Kinfolks" and "Kinflicks"
"Publishers Weekly-"In her latest, shrimper and memoirist Wilson ("An Unreasonable Woman") unspools the tale of her 1950s small-town upbringing along the Gulf Coast of Texas, the daughter of third-generation shrimpers. As in her first book, Wilson writes with a stylized cadence, sans extraneous punctuation, that readers will either take to or not: aGrandma ate Fritos in a glass of buttermilk for dinner and supper and that plus giving the radio evangelist all her shrimp-heading money was driving two of her daughters batty and two not so much.a Her father, aa manas man [who] didnat talk unnecessarily to women, a and is always off shrimping, leaves her to be raised by her eccentric mother and grandmother (athe original Waste Not Want Not-era] nothing was so low that it didnat get cooked into something elsea), who nevertheless imbue her with strong, transcendent values. Meanwhile, a cast of characters that includes her Pentecostal Aunt Silver (aPentecostals had faith and faith was the absence of planninga) and a snake-handling Brother Dynamite lead her through a clash between the Church of Jesus Loves You and an upstart backwoods congregation. Wilsonas distinctive voice makes for some whip-smart passages, and her southern Gothic world, a colorful and unpredictable place, is fully identifiable in its commitment to vice-tight family love and responsibility to some higher power.
""Holy Roller" is a book so good I have to make myself put it down so I won't finish it too soon. If you grew up In The Faith, as she and I did, it's like opening a door and all your old long-departed relatives come out to hug you. And witness to you, in hopes you will stop backsliding and start living for the Lord. Have mercy."--Garrison Keillor
"As a writer Diane Wilson snaps out sentences as expertly as she pinched the heads off shrimp as a girl working for her father. Her storytelling is seductive, her metaphors unique, and her passion for exposing cant and corruption is fierce--in exact proportion to her fierce love for those who helped shaped her integrity."--Robert Shetterly, artist and author of "Americans Who Tell the Truth"
"This book is hothothot. Sizzling hot, hot as hellfire. Once again, Diane Wilson totally enthralls me with her one-of-a-kind voice and exotic material. My mouth is agape."--Janisse Ray, author of "Ecology of a Cracker Childhood"
a"Holy Roller" Rocks. It never slows down. It flies. It's required.We Baptists always had a notion that we were missing something that our Holiness brethren and sisters were in on. Turns out we were right.And little did we know. And besides all that, any page of "Holy Roller" can be studied a thousand years from now to see how a very alive segment of our population lived.Try this: Read the first sentence of each chapter. It'll take you less than two minutes. Next thing you know you'll be heading to the cash register.a--Clyde Edgerton, author of "Walking Across Egypt, The Bible Salesman," and "Raney"
"This book is hothothot. Sizzling hot, hot as hellfire. Once again, Diane Wilson totally enthralls me with her one-of-a-kind voice and exotic material. My mouth is agape."--Janisse Ray, author of Ecology of a Cracker Childhood
"Wilson's prose is breathtaking in its dexterity and blunt poetry."--Library Journal, starred review
Booklist-When an international chemical company nearly destroyed the Gulf Coast bay from which she eked out a living as a shrimper, Wilson's pursuit of the polluters was nearly messianic in its fervor, as recorded in An Unreasonable Woman (2005). Brought up by a zealous family of Pentecostal believers, Wilson comes by her sense of moral outrage at blatant injustice naturally. Churchgoing was more than an occasional Sunday morning outing; it was a 24/7 occupation overseen by a grandmother who judged every aspect of life according to a strict and literal interpretation of the scriptures. In Wilson's provocative memoir of life in the Texas Bible Belt of the 1950s, snake-handling preachers, fitful parishioners speaking in tongues, and money-hungry radio evangelists share equal billing with corrupt game wardens, outlaw fishermen, and less-than-devout male relatives whose "back-sliding" ways give their womenfolk immense cause for concern. Through a vividly kaleidoscopic voice that captures the intensity of fanatical religious rapture with pitch-perfect accuracy, Wilson exuberantly animates a feverish time, a frenetic place, and its fiery people.--Carol Haggas
Publishers Weekly-In her latest, shrimper and memoirist Wilson (An Unreasonable Woman) unspools the tale of her 1950s small-town upbringing along the Gulf Coast of Texas, the daughter of third-generation shrimpers. As in her first book, Wilson writes with a stylized cadence, sans extraneous punctuation, that readers will either take to or not: "Grandma ate Fritos in a glass of buttermilk for dinner and supper and that plus giving the radio evangelist all her shrimp-heading money was driving two of her daughters batty and two not so much." Her father, "a man's man who didn't talk unnecessarily to women," and is always off shrimping, leaves her to be raised by her eccentric mother and grandmother ("the original Waste Not Want Not-er... nothing was so low that it didn't get cooked into something else"), who nevertheless imbue her with strong, transcendent values. Meanwhile, a cast of characters that includes her Pentecostal Aunt Silver ("Pentecostals had faith and faith was the absence of planning") and a snake-handling Brother Dynamite lead her through a clash between the Church of Jesus Loves You and an upstart backwoods congregation. Wilson's distinctive voice makes for some whip-smart passages, and her southern Gothic world, a colorful and unpredictable place, is fully identifiable in its commitment to vice-tight family love and responsibility to some higher power.
"Booklist-"
When an international chemical company nearly destroyed the Gulf Coast bay from which she eked out a living as a shrimper, Wilsonas pursuit of the polluters was nearly messianic in its fervor, as recorded in "An Unreasonable Woman" (2005). Brought up by a zealous family of Pentecostal believers, Wilson comes by her sense of moral outrage at blatant injustice naturally. Churchgoing was more than an occasional Sunday morning outing; it was a 24/7 occupation overseen by a grandmother who judged every aspect of life according to a strict and literal interpretation of the scriptures. In Wilsonas provocative memoir of life in the Texas Bible Belt of the 1950s, snake-handling preachers, fitful parishioners speaking in tongues, and money-hungry radio evangelists share equal billing with corrupt game wardens, outlaw fishermen, and less-than-devout male relatives whose aback-slidinga ways give their womenfolk immense cause for concern. Through a vividly kaleidoscopic voice that captures the intensity of fanatical religious rapture with pitch-perfect accuracy, Wilson exuberantly animates a feverish time, a frenetic place, and its fiery people.
"Holy Roller" is a book so good I have to make myself put it down so I won't finish it too soon. If you grew up In The Faith, as she and I did, it's like opening a door and all your old long-departed relatives come out to hug you. And witness to you, in hopes you will stop backsliding and start living for the Lord. Have mercy.
----Garrison Keillor
