Riley Manning writes for the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal:
The Rt. Rev. Kee Sloan’s new novel “Jabbock” is almost a lifetime in the making.
Now a bishop in the Episcopal Church for the Diocese of Alabama, Sloan first put pen to paper while in seminary in 1978. The story, he said, is that of a young man growing up south of Vicksburg. In the woods behind his house, he stumbles across a man fresh out of prison, living off catfish caught from the bayou. Through the book, the boy grows up alongside this man as he recovers his faith.
“’The title, ‘Jabbock,’ comes from Genesis, when Jacob wrestles with a somewhat supernatural man on the ‘ford of the Jabbock,’” Sloan said. “Jacob, who has cheated his brother out of his birthright, wrestles the man until day break, and doesn’t submit until the man blesses him. Finally, the man changes Jacob’s name to ‘Israel,’ because Jacob ‘had struggled with God and with men and overcome.’”
Biretta tip: TitusOneNine
