A young man loves playing his banjo and being with his girlfriend in 1950s West Virginia. But his father, a stern evangelist preacher, says it's time to give up worldly pleasures and serve the Lord. Zechariah has a crisis of the soul, eventually gives in, and obeys. He and his family will suffer the consequences for the rest of his life.
God of River Mud by Vic Sizemore chronicles the life of that young music lover as he becomes a music teacher at the preacher college to which his father sends him. A conversation in the late 1960s with a far less uptight student and his wife leads Zechariah to repent music once again. He knows he needs to marry to become the preacher of a church. So he courts new arrival Berna.
The reader has met Berna earlier, as a young girl. Raped by her stepfather, not believed by her mother, bullied by her younger brothers, Berna's life has been hard. The only bright spot was her friendship with a school friend. But when she and the other girl drew too close physically, the girl's mom moved them away and Berna was punished. Going to church was her only way out of a house filled with hate.
Not really knowing each other, but knowing what is expected, Zech and Berna Minor start a family as soon as he gets a church. Berna struggles with four babies under the age of 6, her husband's ongoing carnal desires and the congregation's ideas about all the work she should be doing.
At least she has found a friend there. Jordan grew up with just a father, loving the woods, hunting and dressing their targets. He is happy with life until puberty, when Jordan's breasts begin to grow and menses begin. Jordan was born a girl but has been denying it and fighting it. As with Berna, going to church has been an outlet for unhappiness. Jordan keeps busy and involved, eventually leading the youth AWANA group. The church grows as the young people's families join the congregation.
Berna spends more time with Jordan, who has made a successful life as a supermarket meatcutter. This leaves Berna's oldest, her only daughter, to raise the three younger boys. All four in one way or the other follow the patterns set by their parents. One of the boys appears set to become the most infuriating kind of evangelical -- the kind who always knows he is right. Another loves music as much as his father, but doesn't have his hang-up about giving up everything to follow God. The middle son wonders how he fits in. Their sister faces the same kind of attention from men that her mother did. The characters navigate the changing times in both the evangelical church and the communities in which they live.
Over the decades chronicled, Sizemore's novel shows how his characters are trapped by their beliefs and cultural norms. He also shows how escape may be possible. Regardless of any character's makeup, whether LGBTQ+, religious, strong or their counterparts, each is revealed as a character fully formed from where they come from. The river and its mud are always part of their stories. In one way or another, characters discover that the god they worship or deny is also god of that river mud. It is primordial. Like the novel, it is the stuff of life.
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