For all of its problems, Twitter (I refuse to call it X) continues to be a space where I connect with individuals and find new literature, comics, movies, and music. I’m not sure when I came across S.A. Cosby, but I do know once I saw him posting I wanted to check out his latest, All the Sinners Bleed, from the library. I kept walking past it, as I did with Kristen Ghodsee’s Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence; finally, I had some time, so I decided to check it out for the holiday break. Right when I started reading it, I saw that Barack Obama put Cosby’s novel as one of his top fifteen favorite books of 2023, and as I read it, I could see why.

I don’t want to get into the novel, giving away any of the plot points because this is a mystery/thriller novel. However, I do want to focus on two aspects that really stood out to me. The first moment came early on during a description of Albert and Helen Crown’s room. When Titus Crown walks up to the room, he feels like he stepped “through a time machine,” entering the room where his mother passed away years ago. In fact, her nightstand had not changed since “the night he’d heard his mother’s death rattle.” On the nightstand, Titus saw his mother’s “reading glasses and her copy of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.” The reference to Ernest Gaines’ 1971 novel stopped me, and as I dug deeper into Cosby’s novel and Tweeted with him, I discovered the influence Gaines has had on Cosby’s work.

I don’t see the stylistic elements, the seemless shift that Gaines accomplishes moving from a first person narrator to another narrator while maintaining that first person perspective. I don’t see the linguistic elements and ternseness of Gaines that he took from Ernest Hemingway. I do see the regional aspects in Cosby’s descriptions of Virginia, a level of detail that reminds me so much of Gaines’ descriptions of his home in South Louisiana. I see it the thematic connections, the understatement of themes that like beneath the narrative on top. I see the questioning of religion and faith, specifically Titus’ ruminations remind me of Jim Kelly in Of Love and Dust in the way that both question whether or not God or any higher being cares. For Jim, God just plays chess with people. For Titus. God doesn’t exist, and if God does exist, God could care less about helping anyone.

In All the Sinners Bleed, Titus lays bare the ways that organized religion, especially Christianity, exists as a means of mainting power. Speaking with his girlfriend Darlene, Titus tells her that he is frustrated with people saying that nothing terrible happens in Charon because everyone is Christian. He tells her that no mater where you’re from people lie, steal, hate, and more. Continuing, he says, “They go to church every Sunday and hoot and holler about brotherhood and living in Christ, they they come right out and call you or me a porch monkey before they go home and beat their kids. Then have the nerve, the unmitigated audacity, to point at somebody else, at some other town, and say, ‘No, those are the sinners, those are the freaks, not us, not Charon.’”

Titus’ words bring to mind Lillian Smith and her critiques of Christianity in the South, the ways that it works to act as a cleanser of sin but also as a mask for sin. In “The White Christian and His Conscience,” Smith details how whites, in order to square segregation and Christianity, “made up stories about the greatness of the white man and the smallness of the Negro.” Detailing the impact of this deal, Smith states, “Not only is it true that we Jim Crow Jesus Christ each time we Jim Crow any human being (for the spirit of Jesus is in every living soul) but we Jim Crow our children, segregating them from human experiences that make a personality creative and rich and good — that make it grow.”

Smith, like Titus, laid bare the ways that Christianity served as a balm and disguise for racism and violence. In fact, she claimed that her first novel, Strange Fruit, focused on Christianity in the South. Writing to Walter White in 1942, she stated, “It is an indictment of the church in the South and I imagine the thesis is fairly apparent that the author doesn’t think it is possible for a white person to be a Christian in the South; and hard for Negroes to be.” This becomes abundantly clear through Smith’s depiction of Brother Dunwoodie, the revival preacher, in the novel. Dunwoodie tells Tracey that Nonnie is nothing more than a side piece for him to enjoy before he marries a white girl. Dunwoodie also, during the revival, thinks about those he wants to save, the rich people in town and the state legislator.

Ghosts haunt Strange Fruit, they move in and out of Maxwell just as they move in and out of Charon in All the Sinners Bleed. They haunt the land, permeating it completely so that no matter where someone turns they confront the spirits of the past that roam the land. Smith begins her memoir Killers of the Dream by invoking the haunted landscape as she writes, “Even its children knew that the South was in trouble. No one had to tell them; no words said aloud. To them, it was a vague thing weaving in and out of their play, like a ghost haunting an old graveyard or whispers after household sellps, fleeting mystery, vague menance to which each responded in his own way.”

Titus, continuing to speak with Darlene about the mask of Christianity, tells her, “Flannery O’Connor said the South is Christ-haunted. It’s haunted all right. By the hypocrisy of Christianity.” The comment that Titus quotes actually reads, “I think it is safe to say that while the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted.” Like Titus and Smith, O’Connor recognizes the lack of true Christianity in the South, the hypocrisy of attending church then committing racist and violent acts outside of the churhc doors, or even preaching racism and violence from the pulpit.

Even though Titus, Smith, and O’Connor point out the hypocrisies with the church, they note that religion impacts us, it has an important role in our lives, and while the building and structure may fail, the building and structure don’t signify everything. At Gene’s funeral, Reverend Jackson tells Albert that since Gene has died the church wants to get rid of the community garden, a garden that Gene, Albert, and others tended to help the community in Charon. With his age, Albert acquieses to the pastor, but Titus argues with him. Once the pastor leaves, Titus tells his father, “That building over there ain’t the Church. All that is sticks and stones and vinyl siding. The Church is what you and Gene was doing. I might not believe in it, but I recognize it.”

Titus understands the role of the Church, the role of religion. He understands, as Smith did as well, that it brings people together and works to make the world a better place. While Titus says he has lost his faith, I see him in line with Smith who, while never explicitly discussing attending church as a space in her work, has, even like Gaines himself, a spirituality about him. Unlike individuals who sit passively in the pews on Sunday morning or in Bible studies, Titus’ questioning of his faith makes him aware of the flaws and also, if he does return to his faith, makes him stronger. The same cane be said for Smith. The same can be said for Gaines.

What are your thoughts? As always, let me know in the comments below. Make sure to follow me on Twitter @silaslapham.