The Saints of Swallow Hill

The Saints of Swallow Hill is a historical Southern fiction novel written by Donna Everhart and published in 2022. The story is about Rae Lynn Cobb and Delwood “Del” Reese, who each leave North Carolina for a fresh start at a turpentine camp in Georgia during the Great Depression. Rae Lynn leaves to evade the possibility of arrest after a desperate act of mercy, and Del leaves to find a better life in turpentine farming, which he grew up learning. Through their journeys, the novel tackles themes of resilience and determination, healing through connection, the importance of legacy, and the burdens of social expectations surrounding race, gender, and sexuality.

Donna Everhart, a North Carolina native, has authored several Southern novels, such as The Education of Dixie Dupree (2016), The Road to Bittersweet (2017), and The Moonshiner’s Daughter (2019).

This study guide refers to the 2022 paperback edition of the novel.

Content Warning: The novel depicts a suicide attempt as well as assisted suicide. The novel also includes themes and depictions of racism, enslavement, misogyny, and anti-gay bias, as well as racist and outdated language, attempted sexual coercion, domestic violence, and sexual assault. This study guide includes discussions of these topics and themes.

Plot Summary

In Georgia, Delwood “Del” Reese is a new worker on Moe Sutton’s farm who quickly begins having affairs with some of the workers’ wives. After Moe catches Del with his wife, Myra, he assigns him to clean the grain bins. After clearing two of them, the corn collapses and nearly suffocates Del. During the grain bin incident, Del has an out-of-body experience as the other men save him. Del heads to the turpentine camp Swallow Hill in Georgia after finding out Moe wants him to move corn again.

Rae Lynn Cobb is a young woman who works on a small turpentine operation with her older husband, Warren, in North Carolina. While the Cobbs wait for a rainstorm to pass, a tree limb tears into the roof, causing a leak. Warren goes to remove the tree limb against Rae Lynn’s warnings and suffers a fall, which causes internal damage. Rae Lynn begs him to get a doctor, but he refuses, even as his health deteriorates.

When Del reaches Swallow Hill, he convinces the boss, Pritchard “Peewee” Taylor, to hire him as a chipper, even though the position is mostly for Black men. This puts Del at odds with the sadistic, racist woods rider Elijah “Crow” Sweeney.

Meanwhile, Warren worsens and eventually asks Rae Lynn to kill him. She refuses, and he tells her he will do it himself. She hears a gunshot from the house and runs inside to find Warren critically injured from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the stomach. He begs her to kill him. Not wanting him to suffer, Rae Lynn obliges. After Rae Lynn tells Warren’s friend Butch Crandall what happened, he tries to extort her into being with him or he will tell Warren’s son, Eugene, she murdered Warren. Rae Lynn remembers Butch mentioning a turpentine camp, Swallow Hill, and flees. She cuts her hair and takes Warren’s clothes and truck.

Meanwhile, Del’s willingness to work with and befriend the Black chippers angers Crow and leads him to put Del in a wooden sweatbox for the day. After Crow lets him go, one of the Black workers, Nolan Brown, brings him to a juke joint. They have drinks, and Nolan advises him not to communicate with the Black chippers anymore or Crow will harm them as well. Del takes this to heart and does as he is told. Meanwhile, after the truck has radiator trouble, Rae Lynn makes it to the camp, disguised as a man named Ray Cobb. Peewee hires her under the woods rider Jim Ballard. She befriends Del, whose shack neighbors hers.

Over the next few weeks, Rae Lynn and Del both try to make the best of the challenging and brutal conditions and environment at Swallow Hill. They befriend Cornelia, the kind wife of the camp’s abusive commissary owner Otis Riddle. Even though Rae Lynn tries her best at chipping, she cannot make her daily quotas. Her usually patient woods rider Ballard soon pressures her to improve. One morning, Ballard collapses and dies. Recognizing Del’s outstanding work, Peewee offers him a promotion to woods rider. Del accepts, understanding that while Crow will be more antagonistic toward him, he cannot resist the opportunity. Del and Peewee deliver Ballard’s body to his family, while Crow interrogates Rae Lynn about her unmet quotas and puts her in the box. Rae Lynn is in there for three days and retreats into her mind to cope.

Over the next days, Del’s crew does great work, but he notices they are quiet, and Ray Cobb is nowhere to be found. On the third day, Georgie—the small boy who helps them—tells him Ray is in trouble, and the men soon reveal Crow’s actions. Furious, Del rides his horse to camp and forces Crow to open the box. They see Ray is a woman and, noticing that she is still alive, Del takes her to Cornelia. Over the next few days, Del visits her and becomes attracted to her. She soon helps Cornelia at the house and commissary, despite Otis’s protests. Later, after assigning Nolan Brown to Del’s crew, Crow asks to have him back. The morning goes well until Nolan runs away. Crow shoots at him, and Peewee and Woodall send hounds after Nolan.

Later, at the Riddle house, Rae Lynn reveals the truth about her husband. Cornelia comforts her, telling her she gave him mercy. She kisses Rae Lynn on the mouth, which Otis sees. Cornelia tries to calm Otis down, but he attacks Rae Lynn. Crow arrives and tries to throw tar at her, but most of it lands on Cornelia. Peewee fires Crow, and he and Del put him in the sweatbox for a while. Del decides to return home and tries to convince Cornelia to leave as well, but she tells him she must stay. Rae Lynn leaves the Riddle house and goes to her old shack one last time. There, Cornelia quietly appears and says she is leaving Otis. They decide to start new lives together. They get into Rae Lynn’s truck and drive away from Otis and Swallow Hill. Del sees them leave and laments that he will never see Rae Lynn again. As he walks, he sees the truck at a filling station. After some hesitation, Cornelia convinces Rae Lynn to give Del a ride to his childhood home in North Carolina.

There, Del’s sister Sudie May and her husband, Amos, treat Rae Lynn and Cornelia like family. Rae Lynn feels like she could belong there but that she is overstaying her welcome and plans to leave. Sudie May asks her to stay at least until the birth of her child, revealing her pregnancy. Rae Lynn accepts, to Del and Cornelia’s delight. Rae Lynn has a happy few months but wants closure. She goes to the Cobb house, but Butch tries to grab her when she visits Warren’s grave. Del and Cornelia, who followed her, help confront him. Butch helps them put a headstone on the grave and encourages Rae Lynn to visit. However, during a visit, Butch tries to grab her again. She rejects him, and he tells her not to visit again. She accepts that and returns to the Whittaker property. Having started a turpentine farm, Del offers Rae Lynn the position of woods rider, which she accepts.

After Sudie May gives birth, Cornelia and Rae Lynn share their infertility struggles. Cornelia touches Rae Lynn’s hand, making her uncomfortable. She then apologizes and admits that she is a lesbian. She married Otis because her mother found her with another girl. Rae Lynn accepts her friendship, which satisfies Cornelia. Del then asks Rae Lynn if she can see a future with him, and she tells him she can.

Seven years later, Rae Lynn and Del are married with three children. Del works to conserve the longleaf pines and teaches his children their importance. Peewee visits them and tells them a gator killed Crow while he was chasing a Black man. This gives Del mixed feelings, as he despised him but finds his death gruesome. He then looks at his family and feels contented. Rae Lynn soon becomes pregnant again and thinks about how she has the family she always wanted.

Two years later, their sons, Delwood and Jeremiah, are learning about turpentine farming. They reveal Cornelia died from a tumor the prior year and that their mother visited the Cobb house once more to sign a document. When they go to a farmhouse by a river, they see their parents together and believe their love, like the trees, will be everlasting.