Among The Ashes

By Don Reid

Can you picture Don Reid of the Statler Brothers “sitting in a dark room alone, in front of a computer screen for hours and days at a time, creating people and making up stories”? That’s how he describes writing his latest novel, Among the Ashes. In the Acknowledgments section of the book, he calls this “fun.” While readers might question that definition, they will more than likely enjoy reading the final product, which is being released for publication next week. Mercer University Press focuses on topics related to the culture of the South, which Reid enables readers to experience through his stories.

The Statler Brothers retired in 2002, after forty years of entertaining audiences and producing country music albums. Reid then switched from writing songs to writing novels and non-fiction books. I reviewed his previous novel, his eleventh book, Piano Days, in 2022.

Among the Ashes is set in fictional Mansion Springs, a small town in central Virginia, in the summer of 1958. When the Market Road Seventh Day Adventist Church mysteriously burns to the ground on June 4, the Reverend Og Shaffer, pastor of the nearby Mt. Zaphon Community Church, offers to share his church building while a replacement church is built. To do this, he must first obtain permission from his church’s Board of Rule. One of its members objects, saying, “They’re not our people. They don’t believe like us. To start with, they go to church on Saturday.” Rev. Shaffer reminds him that the Old Testament Sabbath is Saturday, the seventh day of the week, adding, “We’re the ones who changed it, not them.”

Og Shaffer works with Sheriff Tom McManamay to discover the identity of the arsonist, as the reader is introduced to a variety of citizens in Mansion Springs and surrounding towns. Og and Tom are both World War II veterans, their histories and those of other characters smoothly woven into the story. Tom grew up in Mansion Springs, and Og moved his family there five years ago when he accepted Mt. Zaphon’s call for him to be its preacher.

Harlene Coiner is the antagonist. She attended school with Tom as a child and is now married to the minister of the destroyed church. She finds fault with all the actions being taken, accusing the fire department of being slow to respond, the sheriff of a bungled investigation, and Og of making promises he didn’t keep.

The story covers a two-week period, with chapter titles such as “June 17 – Same Tuesday Afternoon, Four O’clock.” An epilogue by an unnamed grandchild narrator informs the readers of what happened to the characters in later life.

Reid dedicates the book to his hometown of Staunton, Virginia: “For all the characters and for all the stories it has supplied to me in a lifetime of writing songs and books.” The folksy tone of Among the Ashes is reminiscent of the hit songs Reid wrote for the Statler Brothers. The reader will enjoy being immersed in small-town life while solving the mystery of who burned down the Market Road Seventh Day Adventist Church and what consequences the arsonist faced.