47 pages • 1 hour read
Wiley CashA Land More Kind than Home
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2012A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 4-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary: “Clem Barefield”
Clem Barefield, the county sheriff, narrates this chapter. He receives a call from his deputy, who explains that Ben Hall called 911 saying that his son (Stump) had died. The deputy explains that Stump has been taken to Adelaide Lyle’s home but that the boy died in the church. The deputy adds that Ben’s father has returned to town and that the two plan to meet Sheriff Barefield at Adelaide’s home.
Chapter 5 Summary
As he drives, the sheriff recalls that Ben was once friends with Barefield’s late son, Jeff. He recalls an incident when the two boys, along with another boy they called “Spaceman,” got drunk and then shot out several streetlights with a shotgun. Rather than sending Ben home to his father, who would certainly beat Ben, Barefield agreed to allow Ben to stay with his family for the night. He recalls, too, when Pastor Chambliss first came to town, including an incident when he supposedly exorcised the devil from a local girl whom he deemed possessed. A neighbor of the family, Gillum, then set fire to his own barn after his daughter insisted that she saw the devil run into the barn after leaving the young girl’s body.
Chapter 6 Summary
Barefield sought information on Chambliss after the barn fire. A sheriff in Georgia explained that Chambliss had been convicted of drug and manslaughter charges but served only two years of a three-year sentence. An explosion occurred while Chambliss was cooking methamphetamine, causing a fire that burned much of his body and killed a 16-year-old girl who was with him. In prison, Chambliss gathered a cult-like following of fellow inmates after convincing them that God used the fire to purify him and that he was protected from future harm. After hearing the sheriff’s account of Chambliss, Barefield consulted the Bible verse that Chambliss touted to support his claim.
When Barefield arrives at Adelaide’s home, he finds Ben and his father, Jimmy Hall, among a crowd of people; however, there is no sign of Chambliss.
Chapter 7 Summary: “Jess Hall”
Jess is brought into Adelaide’s home, and though he hears his mother crying from another room, he is instructed to wait at the kitchen table for his father to arrive. While he waits, Jess sees two men bring Stump inside and knows that his brother is dead.
Jess cries quietly with his head against the table while Adelaide argues with some women. He sneaks into the bedroom where Stump’s body rests and lies in the dark next to him until his father arrives and ushers Jess back into the dining room. From the dining room window, Jess sees a man outside, smoking, and presumes that it is his grandfather.
In time, Ben returns to Jess, hugs him, and carries him to his mother. However, when Ben notices that some men from the church congregation have arrived, he goes outside, instructing his wife and Adelaide to lock the door behind him to keep the men out. Jess watches from the window as the men attempt to enter the house; Ben punches one of them. A fight ensues until Jimmy finally breaks it up. Adelaide cleans the blood from the face of one of the men. Ben remains outside until the sheriff arrives.
The men tell the sheriff that they were merely trying to offer condolences to Ben. Barefield tells them to inform Chambliss that he will be questioned soon. Then, he enters the house in search of Julie.
Chapter 8 Summary
Jess rides in his grandfather’s truck, heading home. Jimmy tries to make small talk about tobacco farming, suggesting Jess might help him and Ben take in the crop that year. He stops at a convenience store and offers to buy Jess a soda as he goes inside. Jess waits in the truck, but Jimmy gets into some kind of altercation with the store owner. He rushes back out to the truck and pulls away, yelling at the owner. After some time, he apologizes to Jess for scaring him, though Jess insists that he is not scared.
Chapter 9 Summary
Once home, Jess’s grandfather points out fireflies flitting around, but this only reminds Jess of Stump. He recalls a firefly ornament that he made in school the previous year and gifted to Stump.
Inside, Jimmy smokes and fixes them some bread with peanut butter. Jess picks at the remnants of the splinter in his palm, and his grandfather soaks the hand in hot, soapy water, explaining that it is a trick for loosening the splinter.
Chapter 10 Summary
As Jess prepares for bed, he finds the quartz rock that Stump gave him to hold that morning still in his pocket. Jess places it inside Stump’s “quiet box,” where he finds the firefly ornament as well. When he climbs into bed, he pretends that Stump has merely left the room to use the bathroom and will be coming right back.
As Jess is falling asleep, Jimmy enters his bedroom. He tells Jess that he feels bad about what has happened to Stump. Jess asks him where he has been and why he has stayed away for so long—his grandfather alludes to needing to put some distance between himself and Ben. He tells Jess that now, however, he hopes to be able to spend time with him.
In the night, Jess wakes and senses someone outside. Through the window, he sees his grandfather in Ben’s tobacco field.
Chapters 4-10 Analysis
This section introduces two new characters who will become important to the novel: Sheriff Clem Barefield and Jimmy Hall. Sheriff Barefield brings to Stump’s death his own grief and trauma over the death of his son, Jeff. Though readers are not made privy to the nature of Jeff’s death or the circumstances, Barefield’s distrust of Chambliss is immediately established as he situates himself on the side of Adelaide and the children she seeks to protect from Chambliss. Indeed, Barefield speaks explicitly to the theme of The Influence of Religious Fervor as he reveals what he has witnessed of Chambliss’s influence. In recounting the story of the burned barn (an image that extends the symbolism surrounding Chambliss’s burns by suggesting that his “fire” is catching), Barefield takes an objective stance; though he is a member of the community, he evaluates the religious fervor of his neighbors from the position of an outsider. His recognition of the desperation that drives many of the congregants to hope that extreme religiosity will improve their lives only makes him more attuned to the potential for abuse that could cause Chambliss’s followers to behave in irrational ways. Barefield, like Adelaide, is certain that Chambliss has manipulated his congregation into believing him to be powerful and in possession of certain knowledge and abilities that he does not actually have.
Indeed, in another iteration of The Danger of Secrets and Silence, Barefield is privy to information that the rest of the town is not; he alone knows of Chambliss’s criminal past. Thus, he is highly skeptical of Chambliss’s intentions, though he is careful not to overstep any boundaries, knowing, as Chambliss insists, that Chambliss does indeed possess the right to religious freedom. His devotion to The Pursuit of Justice and Healing compels him to carry out his job of investigating Stump’s death in a thorough manner.
The theme of the danger of secrets and silence also continues to impact Jess. In the aftermath of Stump’s death, Jess is given no information. He is pushed aside by adults and left to deal on his own with both his grief and the confusion of what has happened to Stump. His parents become swept up in their own emotions surrounding Stump’s death, ignoring Jess’s needs as they keep the nature of Stump’s death a secret from him. Jess longs for those who are close to him—his parents—but must quickly learn to cope on his own. He does so by pretending that Stump is not dead, which the novel frames as both a normal stage of the grieving process and a logical reaction for a child with little information about what is happening around him.
Rather than offering clarification, Jess’s grandfather, Jimmy, seems to be full of secrets himself. There is clear tension between him and other characters—namely, Ben and Barefield—but the causes of this dissent are unclear. So, too, is the reason why Jimmy has reappeared in his son’s life, which becomes one more barrier to Jess understanding what is transpiring around him. By keeping Jimmy’s past a secret, Cash heightens the narrative tension—particularly because the altercation between Jimmy and the store owner makes clear that trouble and conflict are still very much factors in Jimmy’s life. Once again, however, readers are forced to speculate as to what transpired because the scene is presented from Jess’s point of view.
Despite this ominous foreshadowing, Jimmy attempts to be kind and caring to Jess, though the fact that they have never met makes this difficult. Jess is wary of his grandfather, and Jimmy, in turn, is reserved and slow to show warmth. However, he extends kindness to Jess in small ways by removing the remainder of the splinter in his hand and suggesting a shared activity (e.g., hunting for arrowheads on his property). Jess is guarded and cautious, reluctant to trust his grandfather fully but curious. He longs, too, for some kind of adult care and protection, given that both parents are physically absent.
Indeed, the death of Stump has traumatized both Ben and Julie, though they respond in different ways. Julie is panic stricken and in shock, thus unable to do anything but cry. Ben’s reaction is anger, and he immediately suspects the church congregation’s (and Chambliss’s) involvement in his son’s death. The violence that he metes out on the men who arrive at Adelaide’s home is proof of this. Ben is ill-equipped to handle his emotions in any other way and lashes out violently, foreshadowing his actions at the end of the novel.
