The Texas Observer- The myth of childhood is that it’s a land of innocence, before mortality and responsibility have become comprehensible concepts, much less heavy-handed laws. But another word for innocence is ignorance, and ignorance is a vacuum that will be filled with whatever’s around, be it boogeymen and monsters or heffalumps and woozles. For Diane Wilson, childhood was populated by devils and ghosts, holy and otherwise.Holy Rollerdescribes Wilson’s Pentecostal upbringing in the tiny fishing town of Seadrift, Texas, where residents were ruled by poverty, labor, elaborate religious mores, and corrupt authorities. Despite that potentially oppressive litany, the book is a delight. Wilson’s world, at least to this reader, registers as exotic and bizarre, full of hysterical preachers and wild-eyed snake-handlers. It speeds along in a language of pure poetry, a rhythmic patois rich with the acute senses of childhood. And unlike most memoirs,Holy Rollerhas a murder-mystery subplot to goose the pace.

Wilson spends most of her childhood either at church or in the company of her many caretakers, of whom Grandma is one. There’s also her mother, described as a serious serious Christian woman,” but one for whom work takes precedence over worship: She could have two lines of wash strung out before the pastor’s wife said Deuteronomy or Ecclesiastes.” Shuttled from place to place, young Wilson learns to keep quiet and follow orders. This works fairly well until Wilson’s uncle, Archie Don, goes missing just as another shrimper on Archie’s boat is mysteriously shot dead at sea. Chief enlists young Diane to help him track down what turns out to be Archie Don’s corpse—and then his killer—nearly getting her killed in the process.