Christopher Scotton

The Secret Wisdom of the Earth portrays a story of a boy’s journey into manhood a rural town in Kentucky. So many tragic events dominate the story, but the reader does not learn Paul Harvey’s “the rest of the story” until halfway into the novel. Christopher Scotton weaves classic novels into his story: The Call of the Wild, Treasure Island, The Lord of the Flies, Robinson Crusoe. What a treat to be transplanted into these old stories. Pops, Kevin’s maternal grandfather, resembles Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. Pops stands for justice and humility and he is highly respected. A tragic accident plunges Kevin and his mother into a self-made prison and the two must return to Kentucky and Pops for redemption. Throughout the novel, Kevin faces choices that present good and bad and flight or fight. Kevin must rely on his grandfather’s teachings to lead the way. The story centers on racism, ignorance, and poverty. This is a community built on the coal mines and the ravaging of the land. Scotton builds on the beauty and harshness of the land and the people. A long but enlightening book.… (mehr)

The Secret Wisdom of the Earth is one of those rare long books that don’t feel long. Carrying the reader to a different time and place, author Christopher Scotton describes scenery and its loss in loving detail, peoples town and mountain with genuinely flawed human beings, and offers heart-searching hope.

With scars on the land paralleling those that grow on the human psyche, with things that can and can’t heal, and with perfectly timed revelations, the present life of a wounded teen, the past of a wounded grandfather, and the future of a broken mountain all come together. Bound up in it all are human demands and expectations, competing needs and greeds, and the cruel fire of moral rectitude that can turn love to hate as surely as a mountain-top blown away.

The characters feel real. The trek through wilderness is haunting and unforgettable. And the trek through regrets, slowly turning hearts from what’s lost to what’s yet to come, is wisely offered, a legend for our times.

There’s just the right touch of coincidence, just the right touch of mystical hope, and just the right touch of righteous understanding… I love this book.

Disclaimer: A friend loaned it to me. Thank you Jean.… (mehr)