Apocalypse in Alabama

Something is seriously awry in the town of Shibboleth, Ala. For several years, water in the surrounding springs has been slowly disappearing—sucked dry, and not by any natural cause. The townspeople have noticed the failing springs but not a similar parching of their own souls. The town of Shibboleth is about to experience an apocalypse. Nashvillian River Jordan brings a poetic view to the fight against evil in The Messenger of Magnolia Street, a novel that abounds in the supernatural: the narrator is the Recording Angel, a being that can see the possible consequences of actions but does not have the power to change them; God strolls down the streets of Shibboleth at night and occasionally enjoys a ride in the back of a pickup truck; and the evil threatening the town is downright scary. (I would suggest not reading some chapters right before bed.) If the town is to be saved, then three childhood friends must reunite to do so. Trice, who was found in the well as a baby, has always had visions and intuitions. Billy is the good-old country boy whose looks belie his sensitivity. Together, they go to Washington, D.C., to bring back Billy’s brother, Nehemiah, who deserted the town after his mother’s death to make a life for himself as an advisor to a senator. As evil makes its final attack on the town and time begins to fold in on itself, some of the townspeople become like zombies, unable to think or move. Others fight against the paralysis to face down their demons from the past. While a simple plot summary may make the novel sound like a horror tale, Jordan’s sense of place and character, along with her writing style, makes the book much more complicated and compelling. She accurately captures the feeling of small-town life, for example. Her description of children getting out of church on a Sunday is both lyrical and authentic: “They are running through and around the legs of their mommas, daddies, aunts, uncles and grandparents. Little cousins and bigger cousins making a noisy mess and having such a good time they forget they are hungry, forget to ask, ‘When are we going to eat,’ because they know they will soon enough.... Right now, they are just happy to have cousins and to be free, out in the open, and the sunshine.” Such a life is worth fighting for. There are many doors by which evil can enter. It can be demonic and supernatural, or as ordinary as letting a mistake from the past determine the future. But as Jordan also reminds us, there are just as many doors for redemption.