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Book Recommendations by Lee Peoples

Two other books I’ve recently enjoyed fall under the category of Christian fiction, as they have to do with miracles: River Rising by Athol Dickson and The Prodigy by Alton Gansky.

In River Rising , the hero, an ordained minister, is of course quite knowledgeable of the power he seemingly possesses and its source, while the young boy in The Prodigy is not even aware of anything special about the many miracles he works.

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Slaves in 1927? You bet! In the hidden swamps of Louisiana, on the Mississippi River. River Rising by Athol Dickson is the suspenseful story of a black man’s search for his past.

Hale Poser, a Negro of mixed parentage, leaves the New Orleans orphanage where he grew up and later worked, and comes to the small town of Pilotville in Plaquemines parish, in search of his past. He had been brought up in the orphanage without any knowledge of a mother or father, or family of any kind. Finding an old piece of paper which he thinks might lead to some answers about who he is, he sets out for Pilotville, a town on stilts on the Mississippi River.

When he goes in search of a newborn baby recently kidnapped from the hospital where he had found work as a janitor, he stumbles upon a hidden cotton plantation, and he himself is taken captive. Slavery in 1927, right down to the evil slave master and the slaves’ management of their plight through the singing of the old Negro slave ! Hale is admonished not to teach the slaves English, but he miraculously and inexplicably speaks the patois of the slaves, the only language they know. And he knows all of their songs, also unexplainable. In direct contrast to the seeming peaceful coexistence of the blacks and the whites in Pilotville—although “separate but equal,” there are no Jim Crow laws here—the Negroes on the plantation are treated less than human. When the river rises, both the plantation and the town of Pilotville are endangered, and along with the receding of the water comes the unraveling of the mysteries of the town, the plantation, and the tragic hero Hale Poser.

Toby Matthews is the main character in The Prodigy by Alton Gansky. Born to a young unwed mother in 1996 in the Blue Ridge Mountains, he is upon his birth known to be special. When he is six years old, he and his impoverished mother flee his abusive father and begin their drive to California. Toby comes to the attention of Richard Wellman, a talk show host at a radio station in Arizona, when people witnessing Toby’s miracles begin calling the station. He miraculously heals many sick people in a hospital his mother takes him to when the evil presence that plagues him causes the car door to slam on his hand, injuring him. Earlier on their drive west, he has stopped a deadly tornado, caught on film by two storm chasers. The video from the hospital and the storm chasers’ video are the proof that Wellman needs, and under the guise of helping him and his mother reach California, the radio host exploits them, and sets Toby up as a modern day evangelist, healing people. The richer Wellman becomes the more evil he becomes. Soon he is completely consumed by the evil presence that has plagued young Toby all of his life.

The two books are very similar in that in both are miraculous occurrences, but different in the sense that the young boy Toby inThe Prodigy has no understanding of miracles. Until he is introduced to Christianity and learns of the miracles Christ performed, he does not even believe he is doing anything. But Hale Poser, the tragic hero in River Rising , knows he is a prophet; and when he arrives at the plantation, Marah calls him Moses, as she sees him as the savior of his people, especially after the miracles he performs. Just how much he proves to be like the Moses of the Old Testament makes for interesting and suspenseful reading. And Toby is a Christ-like figure, having been observed as unique by his teenage mother and everyone else since birth. Another difference is in style. While The Prodigy is fast-moving, a veritable page-turner, River Rising is in contrast, slow-moving and sometimes difficult to follow, perhaps in imitation of the inability to explain some of the happenings in the story. However, you will find both great reads.