The Serpent King

Jeff Zentner explores the relationships between parents and children through several lenses and perspectives, by creating characters that belong to three very different families. He investigates how parents’ choices influence their children’s lives, and whether children can ever escape the shadows of past actions that do not even belong to them personally.  

Dill’s grandfather, whose name Dill carries as a symbol of tradition and continuation, went mad after his only daughter died from snakebite. Living in a small, rural environment meant that everybody witnessed the unusual form his madness took, as Dill’s grandfather hunted snakes, skinned them, and wore their skins as ornaments to commemorate his daughter. Dill’s father, Dill Sr., grew up to become pastor of a Pentecostal church that believes in snake handling, poison drinking, and speaking in tongues as signs of divine blessing. 

Dill Sr. is a con artist and a man of dark charisma, almost a cult figure. Justice finds him through his arrest for possession of child pornography, for which he is imprisoned. Dill was under the direct influence of his father as a child; the town knows him as the son and grandson of the Serpent Kings. Dill’s journey through the novel is to come to terms with his familial legacy, to embrace the fact that he cannot change his lineage, and to find a way to

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