Keepers of the Earth

by LaVerne Harrell Clark

Book Overview

A haunting story about a Texas family torn apart by love for their land and oil greed. In the struggle between the two factions, the family encounters a nest of coachwhip snakes. Neighboring black... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0938317288
• ISBN13: 9780938317289
• Release Date: September 2008
• Publisher: Cinco Puntos Press
• Length: 356 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Going West to Eden

Since ancient times, the serpent has been a symbol of fertility, wisdom and, when depicted devouring its own tail, eternity. So, Laverne Harrell Clark's choice of it as an integral element of her story of a small town in central Texas in the middle of the oil boom is likely no accident.Though not without flaw, this book is an insightful look into the lives of a family that has, like many in the post-1950's era, abandoned its rural heritage. When Sill Munday decides to restore the decaying farmhouse he left after his wife's death, the one his family had occupied for generations, he does so less to keep the building than to reconnect the people whose lives were once part of it. When his plan is, to some degree, challenged by other family members--his brother, Manny--who smell wealth in the possibility that oil lies under the family acres, the constant battle between roots and progress arises once again.The secondary theme of the ancient hoodoo man, Cefus Jenkins, and HIS fight to preserve the earth against the invasion of the oil drills for the coachwhip snakes swarming on the Munday land, becomes then a symbol of the inner struggle of the Munday family not just to reclaim their heritage and their past but to discover themselves in the process. The journey, as with all such, travels through pain, madness and death to a triumph that may at first seem trivial yet which has implications far beyond the lives of these innocents.For T.C. and Silva Lou and Vi and Cefus are innocents, living each day without any real concern for self-analysis. Life may not be perfect but, until greed poisons it, has carried them along without any serious difficulty. It is greed that brings the knowledge of true good and evil into their garden and, as always, drives them from its safety and comfort with a flaming sword.Ms. Clark, however, isn't content with smug similes. With consummate optimism, she insists that it is possible to return to Eden, at least in part, provided one is willing to accept the price demanded for it, the price of self-discovery. There is a lesson to be learned in this parable of loss and redemption, one that would have been less powerful had she chosen to populate her book with anyone other than the earthy, simple working folk she renders so well one is certain one had to have known them once.KEEPERS OF THE EARTH will likely appeal most deeply to those who know the world and time in which it is set, but its lesson is unquestionably universal. At a time when more and more people are seeking knowledge of their heritage, it will provide a small, bright flame of hope that you can, in fact, go home again.

Keepers of the Earth in the Sociology of Deviance class.

As we began the novel several students commented, "I don't understand this book." This is frequently a sign that we are going to get some fine work done! Sociology ought to be of some use for understanding the unexpected--and Harrell Clark has woven an intricate portrait of everyday life. We were much aided by the presence of a student from central Texas who asserted to the Minnesotans that these were familiar lives. The class eventually arrived at several key insights. "Where you grow up has to do with who you are." "Behavior alters behavior." And most helpful for our journey: "Two people witness an event, explain it completely and very differently."

Beautifully crafted and instructive in lost art of hoodoo

Keepers of the Earth is the story of a Texas community, its local black conjurer and land-owning white family brought to confusion by oil-money greed, resurgent familial feelings and jealousy. The author leads readers throught the rituals of Uncle Cefus' "great hand" in reuniting the murdered coachwhip snakes with their rightful homeland, and in the process leads us to believe that doing right by others may do more for luck and success than any amount of hard work. Not only is the novel poetic, but passionate, clearly exhibiting the author's love of folklore. The ficticious account is equally instructive in the lost art of conjuring (which slipped away in the 1960's). An enjoyable and fun book to read.