A mishap while tree-poaching leaves beer-swilling Virginia lumberjack Donnie Huff well and truly dead — until some furious pounding on his body snatches him back from the other side with no ill effects to speak of. His devout mother-in-law, Opal Criner, is convinced his recovery is nothing less than a miracle — and a potentially profitable one at that. With a few of Opal's valuable lessons in preacherly manners, Donnie is soon ready to spread Jesus' divine word . . . though he's not quite sure he was listening when the Savior said it.

If Walker Percy had grown up on the writing of Charles Dickens, he might write something like T.R. Pearson 

—The Denver Post