After witnessing the death of his younger brother in a terrible home accident, 14-year-old Kevin and his grieving mother are sent for the summer to live with Kevin's grandfather. In this peeled-paint coal town deep in Appalachia, Kevin quickly falls in with a half-wild hollow kid named Buzzy Fink who schools him in the mysteries and magnificence of the woods. The events of this fateful summer will affect the entire town of Medgar, Kentucky.
Medgar is beset by a massive Mountaintop Removal operation that is blowing up the hills and back filling the hollows. Kevin's grandfather and others in town attempt to rally the citizens against the 'company' and its powerful owner to stop the plunder of their mountain heritage. When Buzzy witnesses the brutal murder of the opposition leader, a sequence is set in play which tests Buzzy and Kevin to their absolute limits in an epic struggle for survival in the Kentucky mountains.
Redemptive and emotionally resonant, The Secret Wisdom of the Earth is narrated by an adult Kevin looking back on the summer when he sloughed the coverings of a boy and took his first faltering steps as a man among a rich cast of characters and an ambitious effort to reclaim a once great community.More About the Author
› Visit Amazon's Christopher Scotton Page
Christopher Scotton
Biography
Christopher Scotton has been a carpenter, bouncer, kite flyer, amusement park ride operator, venture capitalist and CEO of several technology companies. After a successful career in technology, he moved to London to run the European operations of a technology publishing and tradeshow company.
While in London, he began work on his first novel, rising at 5:00 a.m. each morning and writing in the quiet hours before work, then revising and editing in the evenings after putting his young sons to bed. In 2001, he and his partners sold the company and he returned to the United States, putting his writing ambitions on hold to start a company in the nascent search engine marketplace.
In 2007, he joined a venture capital firm where he invested in and nurtured numerous early-stage technology companies. He also took up his unfinished first novel and began writing again, in the mornings before work, on trains, in airports--anywhere he could steal a few minutes of mental quiet. In 2011 he finished the novel and joined one of the venture capital firm's portfolio companies as President and CEO, a position he holds today.
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
The Amazon Debut Spotlight of the Month, January 2015: This earnest debut is part coming of age story, part tale of redemption and part Greek myth played out in the holler. After the horrific death of his younger brother in an accident on the lawn, 14 year old Kevin Gillooly and his distraught mother seek healing in the rural Kentucky home of his grandfather. There, Kevin – who is suffering from survivor guilt at the very least – meets up with a local boy, Buzzy Fink; the two embark on the kind of Huck Finnish boyhood adventures – fishing, hunting, hanging out in the tree house – meant to be wholesome and soul-cleansing. But this rural Kentucky town is rife with bigotry and rage, and soon Kevin and Buzzy are drawn into local politics that involve a mountaintop clearing project and the death of a local gay man who had opposed it. There are unabashed good guys, like Kevin (who has a bit of a pyromaniacal tendency, which could have been more thoroughly developed) and his “Pops,” a gruff old man who charms with remarks like “I’ll take another bullet before I eat any more of this hospital slop.” There are some very very bad guys, like the townsperson who murders his neighbor because of his own not unexpected issues. And then there are the guys – like Buzzy and Kevin – who find their characters forged and burnished by one particular hike this particular summer, the summer “when we left the coverings of boy behind,” as Kevin puts it. Readers might recognize something in the tone and style and plot; take one virtuous man, one redneck town and two scrappy, interesting kids. Add in the narration by a boy now all grown up. And you’re just begging for comparisons to Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. And yet, Scotton’s very earnestness, the obvious love he has for this particular bit of land, and the perfect ear for its youngsters’ dialogue (“She smiled at me and I almost lost breakfast”) make this novel his own. At once familiar and modern, it is always poetic and compelling. --Sara Nelson
Review
''One of the characters in Christopher Scotton's The Secret Wisdom of the Earth is described as having a voice that was gifted from God, but Scotton's own voice could easily be described as such. In language that will stun and amaze with its remarkable beauty, he tells of the joys and griefs of the people of a rural Kentucky county and the devastation of its landscape by strip mining. A novel epic in story and wisdom and all told through the deeply moving voice of the main character, Kevin, who has a heart as vast as the Blue Ridge Mountains he so loves.'' --Natalie S. Harnett, author of The Hollow Ground --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
About the Author
Christopher Scotton is an experienced public speaker, seminar leader, online marketer and technology entrepreneur. After a stint as a venture capitalist, he joined his third start-up, a computer-aided design (CAD) software company, where he is currently President and CEO. Scotton is a recognized expert and frequent speaker on search engine marketing, search engine optimization, social media marketing and online lead generation.
I kicked off my reading for 2015 with this book. It was one of those timeless classics or will become a timeless classic I am sure. This book is narrated by the adult Kevin looking back at one summer that move him from innocent childhood toward manhood. As far as I am concerned it dragged in places more than I would like but I did enjoy the journey this book took me on and will read another if the author is so inclined to write another one. I loved the characters they were well developed and I will remember them.
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