Sineater

This grim, claustral story is about the consequences of a primitive form of Christianity practiced in the mountains of Virginia, the author's home state. The sineater is a man shunned by all, a man whose face should never be seen. He performs the valuable service of absorbing all the sins of each person who dies, by eating ritual food laid out on their corpses. When the sineater's son, Joel, is allowed to attend school, a series of violent omens convinces the fanatic locals that God is puni...