Sharp as a Serpent's Tooth: Eva and other stories

by Mandy Haynes

You'll meet Eva, the young daughter of traveling Pentecostal preachers, who catches snakes while her parents hide behind the bible and a large wooden crate. Eva's life changes when she makes her first friend and realizes there is more to life than fear.

In Plans for Sweet Lorraine, you'll meet Lorraine's mama, Cordelia - a fiery red-head with a temper to match, and a mind as sharp as the sting from a leather strap. She'll do anything to keep her daughter safe. Even if she has to beat the devil himself.

Laurel, the young girl in The Day I Threw the Rock has no idea that she saved someone's life, or that she may have killed someone to do it. She just knows that she should be allowed to wear overalls and play ball like the boys. Well, ain't it true that she can throw a baseball harder and faster than Luke or John Randall? Just ask Sarah Rose's Uncle...

Junebug Fischer is ready to set the record straight and let you know what really happened the summer she turned fifteen. It's true, she killed someone, but she never killed nobody on purpose. That was purely accidental.

When Charlotte's world is turned upside down, her aunt is there to put it back on its axis. Charlotte learns that everything she's been told about her long lost aunt has been a lie, and her aunt teaches her many important lessons. The most important lesson is forgiveness. Cussing Snakes and Candy Cigarettes is proof that there's magic all around us, all we have to do is open our hearts and minds.

157 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 16, 2020

About the author

Biography
Mandy Haynes has spent hours on barstools, at backstage venues, and riding in vans listening to tales from some of the best songwriters and storytellers in Nashville, Tennessee. She now lives in Fernandina Beach, Florida with her three dogs, a turtle, and a grateful liver. Walking the Wrong Way Home was a finalist for the 2017 Tartt Fiction Award.

Mandy worked for twenty-six years for Vanderbilt University Medical Center before deciding to run away to Amelia Island. She started as a clerk, working in the mailroom and making thousand of copies of patients medical records - but worked her way up to finish the last sixteen years as a pediatric cardiac sonographer at Monroe Carroll Jr. Children's Hospital.

Some of her favorite memories include her time as a receptionist/administrative assistant in Addiction Psychiatry, break-room antics with her fellow refund clerks, and of course all of the families and children she met in cardiology.

Fans of Fannie Flagg, Sue Monk Kidd, Wiley Cash, Rick Bragg, Harper Lee, and Harry Crews might enjoy her writing style. These stories are for readers who like to chase their stories with a shot of whiskey while burrowed under a hand stitched quilt.

Reviews

[Eileen Sanchez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sharp As A Serpent’s Tooth – Eva and Other Stories by Mandy Haynes (three dogs write press 9/28/20) is a collection of short stories that saved me during this time of social distancing. I read it twice. It was that good! This is her second short story collection.

I love short stories. Good ones have all the elements of a novel and if you’re a reader like me, you have a few novels going at once. So, a book of short stories is perfect for a quick escape. My idea was to read Sharp As A Serpent’s Tooth one story at a time, read to relax and get a good night’s sleep. But that didn’t happen, I read it in one night, I LOVED IT! Didn’t want it to end. Starting with Eva, snakes and red-headed girls! Did I tell you I’m a red headed girl? What a combo. It flowed. It sang. It pulled me along. Eva broke my heart but she’s somewhere safe because she’s too smart not to have had an end plan as part of her revenge.

I peaked at the next page and Plans for Sweet Lorraine just wouldn’t let me sleep. We all need a Mama like Lorraine has. A Mama who can see through a handsome man as he “preens and struts” around, yet lets her daughter make her own mistakes. A Mama as fierce as a grizzly with a tenderness to warm your soul with her plan for Sweet Lorraine.

The Day I Threw the Rock, now doesn’t the title call you right over? Here you meet a young heroine, who could be the best pitcher on the boys’ team, but she’s not allowed to play anymore since she’s a girl. The reader cheers Laurel on as she struggles with the guilt of an innocent act that eliminates a threatening evil. The story unfolds from the eyes of a child as Mandy Haynes weaves the unspoken truth to the very end.

Junebug Fischer and Cussing Snakes and Candy Cigarettes will entertain you and teach you a thing or two about how girls become women. One finds strength within and saves herself and her father’s moonshine still. The other learns from her aunt, a runaway, shunned family member, who teaches June to face evil and win.

The common threads in all the stories are red-headed, freckled girls who tell us stories of snakes, moonshine stills, cussin’, with fiery and genuine southern characters. Another reviewer calls Mandy Haynes a southern front porch storyteller, and I agree. I highly recommend her short story collections and can’t wait for the next one. Mandy promises we’ll met some of her strong female protagonists again in her novel. I’m ready!

[Donna Everhart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mandy Haynes' collection of short stories pack a powerful punch! I've always found it impressive when an author can squeeze a whole lot of story into a tight narrative, while still delivering on fully developed characters, plot and MOST important --> VOICE.

I loved how Haynes created characters that were very different, yet with certain physical attributes - in this case, having red hair was one. She also centered on snakes in her stories, an ever fascinating creature, and like many other reptiles or mammals (opossums!) they are reviled simply because of their looks - well - and the fact they may be deadly, but trust me, they're not thinking, "I'd like to bite a human today." (That's totally random and off-track, but true.)

Regardless, Haynes style will keep readers engrossed, and wishing for more. There are five stories, southern gothic, with a touch of magical realism in one.

Highly recommend!

[Joe Palmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fernandina Beach Author Mandy Haynes Hits Another One Over The Fence!

Barely a year after her smash hit of short story collections, WALKING THE WRONG WAY HOME, which landed her in the sweet spot with an official selection a a Bonus Pick in the vaunted Pulpwood Queens Book Club, in addition to garnering praise from best selling authors, Mandy has come roaring back with another collection of short stories. This one, SHARP AS A SERPENT'S TOOTH - EVA AND OTHER STORIES, goes once again into Mandy's native middle Tennessee. Not content to rest on her laurels and let the kudzu grown around her ankles, she delves, with laser focus, in acute detail once again into the lives of the put down and disaffected from "the wrong side of the railroad tracks," as those of us who lived on that side of the tracks know from firsthand experience.

I just blogged on my own author website, joepalmerauthor.com about this powerful collection of stories that includes everything from snake handling holiness preachers to an enigmatic young girl who rids herself of her abusive parents in a way that'll make your skin crawl, to a young, dashing preacher with a taste for jailbait who gets caught with his pants down, to a rock throwing girl with a deadly aim, to a flaming moonshiner and a witchy Auntie who shows up in her newly orphaned young niece's life and proceeds to set the small town on its heels while dispossessing the child of some nasty rumors about her.

If you took Harry Crews, Flannery O'Connor, James Lee Burke and Carl Hiaasen, put them together of a bottle of RC Cola, tossed in a few salted peanuts for good measure and gave it a good shake, what would come exploding out of the bottle would be Mandy Haynes. Follow her into her world and you'll be on your knees with her in a creek hunting crawdads under rocks, catching salamanders and snakes, giving catty, teenage high school girls their comeuppance when they hiss at you because you don't have a fancy gown to wear to the ball, throwing rocks, making biscuits in an old cast iron skillet, , taming a wayward boyfriend and all manner of country-fried shenanigans. You'll get your clothes dirty and your dander up, bust a gut laughing, get so pissed off that you want to slap the taste out of someone's mouth and, most of all, enjoy a foot-stomping good read. Although Mandy's characters are Southerners who live in a part of the world where "polite company" averts its gaze while passing through, there are deeper and universal themes painted in bright colors on her canvas. Most of us have felt pain, despair, hopelessness and marginalization at one moment or another in our lives. Mandy imbues her off-kilter and disconsolate characters with these things and presents them in a way anyone can comprehend and say to themselves, if they're honest - Oh, hell, yes, girl. I sure do know!

This newly published collection is already getting noticed by some writers that puts Mandy in some high cotton. And she dang sure deserves to be there. All this author can add to that praise is, "Day-ummm, girl! When are you gonna put all these characters in a novel?" I have a feeling we won't have to wait long.

[Claire Fullerton · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Mandy Haynes’s collection of Southern tinged short stories, Sharp as a Serpent’s Tooth, characters are as different as Jayhawks and Starlings, they grin like possums, and, if in need while in someone’s bad graces, are told they can go get what they want “their own dang self.” Throughout the assembly of Haynes’s five, compelling, stories, her character-intensive narrative is urgent and breathless, so regionally pitch-perfect as to feel indiscreet:

“Now don’t roll your eyes at me,” the narrator of short story, Junebug Fischer says. “You know dang good and well Rita’s daughter did not get pregnant on her honeymoon. And you know same as me that she shouldn’t have married that no count Tucker, pregnant or not.”

Sharp as a Serpent’s Tooth is laser-sharp, finely wrought fiction in each stand alone story. In “Eva,” the abused daughter of a con-artist preacher is depicted with such Southern Gothic surrealism as to make her seem other-worldly. In “Plans for Sweet Lorraine,” a fearlessly headstrong mother is led by gut-intuition to rescue her innocent daughter from the clutches of a smooth-talking charlatan posing as a man of God.

In each story, the narrator’s voice is chock full of gumption– the sure-footed kind grown and fostered in the hollows of the rural South. They are all unique, memorable narrators. In “The Day I threw the Rock,” the young, red-haired narrator prefers to go barefoot in overalls, in whose pocket she keeps a garden snake as she unfurls the high-drama of events that lead to her throwing the eponymous rock. In “Cussing Snakes and Candy Cigarettes,” a young girl defies common, local opinion of her dead mother’s twin sister, in an eye-opening summer that impacts her coming of age.

Author Mandy Haynes approaches her craft with an uncanny grasp on pace in perfect measure. Her authentic voice is beyond comparison. Her high-stakes stories are layered with utter unpredictability. I cannot recommend this Southern to the core collection of short stories emphatically enough. Each of the five stories in Sharp as a Serpent’s Tooth is the perfect combination of riveting story and character as place.

[Kendall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review to come...

[Kathleen Rodgers · Rating 5 out of 5]

If each story were an offering plate, it would be overflowing with colorful characters rich in detail and descriptions. You can dress a man in a preacher’s suit, but that doesn’t make him Godly. Sometimes the Godliest folks don’t come cloaked in Sunday-go-to-meeting garb but in overalls covered with the toil of hard work. A wide-eyed girl can learn fast that her new best friend’s parents aren’t who they appear to be. A mother with a pretty teenage daughter can find the gumption and grit she needs to confront a man with soft hands who hides his sickness behind the pulpit.

In the final entry, Cussing Snakes and Candy Cigarettes, the ten-year-old narrator learns that you can gussy up gossip and call it truth, but it’s still gossip. Half the time the rumor mill gets it wrong and churns out nothing but half-truths or complete fabrications about someone. Each section features a strong-willed female narrator who finds herself in a situation where she has to save others and sometimes herself.

Sharp As A Serpent’s Tooth can be enjoyed simply for the entertaining tales that keep you hypnotized until the end. On a deeper level, each tale is a warning to bullies of both sexes that if you tangle with a fearless woman or girl, you might get burned. Set in the rural south at a time before the age of the internet, the book feels relevant for today, especially for the #MeToo and #ShePersist generation.

For fans who loved the young narrator, Peejoe, along with Aunt Lucille, in Mark Childress’s bestselling novel, Crazy In Alabama, you will love the hardscrabble and inquisitive narrators in Mandy Hanyes’s collection.

Each of Mandy’s narrators remind me of the caller who shows up unannounced at your door. You weren’t expecting them, but when you strike up a conversation, the next thing you know, you’ve forgotten what you were doing before you opened the door. You take a few steps, the narrator keeps talking, and swoosh, you’ve been swept up into the tale. When I got to the end of the book, I realized her writing had cast a spell over me. Her voice is that beguiling.

The greatest gift one storyteller can give to another storyteller is the urge to keep writing. As a writer, reading Mandy Hayne’s fiction makes me want to improve my own storytelling skills. For nonwriters who simply love to read, Mandy’s characters will live in your head and heart for a long time. If you’re like me, you might find yourself back in the last story, pretending you are ten and tagging along with Aunt Corrine who thinks nothing of “smoking” candy cigarettes and cussing at snakes.

One more thing before I close. What I love about Mandy’s work is she’s anything but predictable! I highly recommend this collection!

[Johnnie Bernhard · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's been quite awhile since I have enjoyed a short story collection to the degree I have SHARP AS A SERPENT'S TOOTH. Mandy Haynes has an authentic sense of place and voice as an author. Her writing makes this collection a suspenseful read full of rich characters and setting. Of course the true gold seal in literature is the ability for the author to create empathy, deep emotion for the characters. Ms. Haynes does this. These characters and their stories will stay with you a long, long time. Well done!

[Kathryn Ramsperger · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I'll tell you a secret, but you have to promise not to tell nobody," Eva says, in the very first story in Mandy Haynes' second collection of short stories, which won a Pulpwood Queens major award this year. You won't want to put this book down from that sentence on because Mandy Haynes' fiction will open your eyes and soften your heart. She'll take you by the hand and show you how what glints in the sun turns dark in the shadows. She writes about the deep contrasts in humanity--the good, the bad, the ugly--and how we mistreat one another, sometimes in hidden, vile ways others don't suspect. Or is it they're turning the other way when it happens? 

Any book that begins and ends with snakes and crazy preachers captures my interest, and the serpents in these stories are as individual as the humans who handle them, but none as venomous as their human counterparts (at least until we get to the last story, "Cussing Snakes and Candy Cigarettes," as protagonist Charlotte observes of the human preacher handler: "This man looked crazy and perfectly sane all at the same time." (I half expected him to open his mouth and bite someone himself.) And both snake and preacher are outed.

Mandy Haynes inhabits a Tennessee voice as much as she inhabits the places and creatures surrounding its mountains--everyone and everything she writes about in all these stories is told in first-person point of view, and her gift is that she has you there, too, inside these characters' heads, but always balancing the crazy with the sane, true voice of a young woman or girl narrator. In true Southern Gothic tradition, SHARP AS A SERPENT'S TOOTH is all of this and more. And want more you will!

[Zoe Disigny · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the second book of short stories I’ve read by Mandy Haynes, and, like the first one, it’s so hard to say which story I preferred. I was totally caught up in each one, but maybe “Junebug Fischer” was my favorite. Mandy does such a great job describing a young “rough and tumble” girl and her emotional response to entering the world of dating.

[Denise Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book Review: Sharp as a Serpent's Tooth: Eva and other Stories~ by author, Mandy Haynes

'Sharp as a Serpent's Tooth' is an exceptional collection of short stories that bleeds the authenticity of the South. The strong, yet damaged characters that Ms. Haynes has created~ what they stand for, and what they will not, is as entertaining and meaningful as the day is long..

With it's hypnotic descriptions, to it's down and dirty, you'll be caught-up in the lives of Eva, Cordelia, Laurel, Junebug, and more, as they lead you on an emotional journey that immerses as you find yourself having a good cry, a few chuckles, and feeling as nervous as a cat in a room full of rockin' chairs~ now that's what I call a great read!

The author has hit on every single element of being a great story-teller by allowing the reader to "feel" what the characters are feeling. Written with wisdom, charm and passion, you will be hard-pressed to find a collection such as this, elsewhere. It's unique, messy, and real with a splash of sweet. As 'Sharp as a Serpent's Tooth' leads you down the crusty, and dusty back roads of the southern landscape, with its desperation, bravery, revenge and hope, you'll quickly realize what a true gem this is, through and through!

I thank Ms. Haynes in her deciding to bring these stories to life! Through her talent and her voice, she gifts to the reader a song to the south that will have you cheering, and cursin' in all the right places~ and most certainly, wanting more. I highly recommend this collection and happily give a 5+ Star rating!

5 Stars

#SharpAsASerpent'sTooth
#MandyHaynes
#ThreeDogsWritePress

Wild Sage Book Blob

[Jane Pettitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the book of short stories a southern aspect with snake handling preachers kiss the snake, moonshine , strong characters and very descriptive enjoy

[Pam Carmichael · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't say enough about this author "Mandy Haynes" I finished her second book of short stories and can't say enough about how great they were!!!!! You feel as if you are in the book, the characters are so real I found myself yelling, rooting for them, crying and just about every other feeling. The stories touch you deeply and you just want more and more!! I just love her and she is so talented in so many ways and a great person to boot, cheers all around for her and please pick up her books as you will never, ever feel the same! Happy reading folks!

[Debra Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a cast of characters! What a voice! And what insight and empathy into the lives of her diverse characters. I am a huge Mandy Haynes fan. I see in her writing traces of Flannery O’Conner and Alice Munro. Having read both of her short story collections, Walking the Wrong Way Home and Sharp as a Serpent’s Tooth, I find myself thinking of her characters long after closing the book. Most precious to me is Jewel. Check out both books to find out which story I’m talking about and why both Jewel and Mandy have touched my heart.

[Kathryn Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mandy Haynes has a special gift for observing everyday people and interpreting the depth of meaning in their lives. Like her debut, Walking the Wrong Way Home, Sharp as a Serpent's Tooth treats the reader to unforgettable characters faced with the most difficult of situations, and the strength and determination to rise above what life throws at them. I highly recommend this collection and am eagerly awaiting Ms. Haynes debut novel.

[Betty Koval · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mandy Haynes lives in the very soul of her characters. Her prose and her gift of storytelling is remarkably vivid - sometimes brutally truthful yet with a wit & wisdom equally balanced in her stories. If you are from the south or have lived here for any time - you KNOW these people.
Thank you Mandy for characters like Junebug Fischer - I suggest every young girl read her story!

[Theresa Bakken · Rating 5 out of 5]

As satisfying as sweet tea

Yes these are distinctly southern stories- but even that huge category can’t contain them. They are also big hearted, brave, feminist stories. They are examinations of good and bad. They are short stories with long, deep roots. They won’t take long to read - but they will take hold and stay with you a long time.

[Jenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! Mandy has done it again. I can't explain all the emotions I felt when reading Sharp as a Serpent's Tooth, but I know I couldn't put it down. The characters just pull you in and leave you with a smile. A must read, just like Walking the Wrong Way Home.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mandy Haynes had so many stories to tell and I am loving them. She touches on every emotion in every story. So loved this book. Cannot wait for more. You will not be disappointed.

[Darrelyn Saloom · Rating 5 out of 5]

A perfect title and stories to match.

With a sharp eye for details and plenty of wit, you'll be transported into the lives of Mandy Haynes' characters and hypnotized by her prose. She's that good.

[Tammy C · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best Southern storyteller this generation. Authentic characters and engaging plots.

[Dolores Goold · Rating 5 out of 5]

All these stories are so captivating; I didn’t want the stories or the book to end!

[Sally Cronin · Rating 5 out of 5]

These stories are written with the voice of the deep south of America of another age, where revival tents popped up on the edge of town, and folks filled the space with their passion and zeal. Nothing seems to be taboo as the congregation is inflamed by the words and the actions of the self-acclaimed saviour, whose power over snakes is used to demonstrate the righteousness of their words.

But what lies beneath the rousing and theatrical performances is not for the faint-hearted, and in particular the young girls whose stories we discover through the pages of this collection.

The scene is set with the first story, Eva, and it is a powerful reminder that the term preacher does not always bring with it benevolence and being a child of fanatics comes with a heavy price.

We follow other young women as they challenge the stereotyping of the time and culture to make their own way and to protect themselves from the intent of others. Particularly those who are held up as being moral guardians of the community or whose charm is irresistible. Sometimes loving support is at hand, but more often there is only their own inner strength to rely on.

The stories are absorbing and sometimes shocking but they are also inspirational and celebrate the triumph of friendship, motherhood, courage and love.

I recommend the stories to not only lovers of authentic Southern fiction but also readers who champion those who stand their ground and overcome adversity.

[Cynthia Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The subtitle of Mandy Haynes’ website is “author of literary fiction with a southern drawl,” and that is spot on. Sharp as a Serpent’s Tooth came highly recommended and did not disappoint. Five stories–two long and three short–and lots of snakes, real and metaphorical. The collection opens with “Eva,” one of the long stories at seventy-two pages. The narrator is eleven-year-old Delene, and here is the essence of Delene: “Even if it was disturbing, you couldn’t help but stop and watch.” Exactly the kind of narrator you want. Female narrators, girl/mama/aunt heroes, girl subjects, girl power. I loved every story and every minute of this wonderfully alive collection. Treat yourself!

[Mary Sheriff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sharp as a Serpent’s Tooth is the best collection of short stories I have ever read. The characters, like June Bug and Eva, are delightful, quirky, and engaging. The plots are mesmerizing, unique, and page-turning. The southern country setting adds texture and delight with its Pentecostal Preachers, snakes, and speaking in tongues. Mandy Haynes has put together a beautiful collection with a southern voice that drawls off the page.