Into the Fire

The Killing Tree is a story about people I have never known—so far outside my world and, yes, probably my comfort zone. Rachel Keener portrays the life experience of her heroine, Mercy Heron, steeped in and revolving around a jarring fear of her grandfather, a church elder known to her only as Father Heron. Her grandmother, Mama Rutha, is considered to be a loon, and the town both pities and admires Father Heron for keeping her as his wife.

Mercy Heron is the illegitimate offspring of Father Heron’s and Mama Rutha’s daughter Mary. Mercy knows only that her mother died giving birth to her outside on the hard dirt because Father Heron wouldn’t let her in the house when she returned pregnant to the family home after running off with a man she loved. Mercy also learns that she isn’t loved by her grandfather, and that her grandmother tries to make up for what he fails to give her, but Mama Rutha’s strange ways also lack important provisions such as necessary meals and clean clothes.

The only real friend young Mercy has is Della DeMar, the flirty redhead who isn’t afraid to bed down whatever boy she’s currently attracted to. When she’s finished with him, she dyes her hair a new color. Mercy is the flip side of her seductive friend—shy, low key, and innocent—until one evening she goes with Della to “the docks” where everyone escapes to party. She meets a young man called “Trout” who works in the tomato fields as a migrant worker. The negative nickname assigned to his kind is “mater migrant”, and he has the red-stained hands to prove it. Only he doesn’t seem ashamed about it and instead alludes to the freedom he finds in doing the work.

The Killing Tree is a story of poverty, emotional and physical isolation and imprisonment, the denial of love, the blooming of love, the desolation of a treasured peace found in the only love Mercy has ever experienced and absorbed into her being. It tells of a cruel pseudo Christianity without love, forgiveness, or kindness. It takes the reader into a combo of backwoods mountain lore mixed with Christian blessings, and the only reality of faith comes toward the end when the pastor of the small Crooktop Mountain Church explains the unburdening of repentance and the instant forgiveness of Jesus, only to be overridden by Father Heron’s desire to cast his granddaughter into the total immersion of humiliation.

Rachel Keener is true to her characters throughout the novel, only hinting at a stab of regret for the malevolent and unbending Father Heron. She establishes a real voice for these unusual people in her story who take the reader through the gamut of young—and sometimes unreal—love while exposing the wicked tendencies of those who won’t yield control of their own lives, let alone the lives of others. The story twists toward the end, taking the experience into full blown sorrow, hopelessness vying with hidden hope, brief healing, and a strange justice determined at the designated killing tree. The story leaves the reader with unresolved circumstances and the longing for real mercy and truth to come to young Mercy’s life.

Written in the language of the people in this lifestyle, displaying a stark beauty at times and an ugly despair at others, this novel is both lovely and pitiful. And definitely not for everyone. If you wince at words such as “bitch” or “whore” and their derivatives and implications, “slut”, etc., you might be offended at the realism in this story. Published by the Center Street division of Hachette Book Group, it doesn’t answer up to certain CBA house requirements. The Killing Tree is a fascinating and well-written story but emotionally and spiritually painful to read.

Father, I ask that you walk with Rachel through the reservoir of your provision, that you bless her obvious talent, that you encourage her in all she does to honor you. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.

(This novel will be available in March and can be pre-ordered at Amazon.com.)