Antenora

In Bethel, Alabama, a religious community cannot agree on what happened to Nora Willet. She was always trouble, the town says, and later it says she was possessed. Maybe she lost her mind and killed three people, injuring many more.

Nora's childhood friend Abigail Barnes narrates, part confession and part plea for Nora to come home. She recalls another girl's gruesome eighteenth birthday, a time Nora may have fully revived a snake, their private meetings at the lakeside, and Nora's deliverance ceremony.

The two girls share an affection that the town's strict religious teaching cannot tolerate. That closeness marks Nora as a traitor to her own people, though only Abigail and Nora know what lay between them. Nora's own account is a single line: a snake is speaking to her.

The title borrows the name of the ninth circle of hell in Dante, where traitors to their country are held. The book mixes tenderness with horror, and Abigail's voice keeps returning to the matter of where Nora is now.