Southern Cross the Dog Paperback - 2014

An epic odyssey in which a young man must choose between the lure of the future and the claims of the past

With clouds looming on the horizon, a group of children play among the roots of the gnarled Bone Tree. Their games will be interrupted by a merciless storm-bringing with it the Great Flood of 1927-but not before Robert Chatham shares his first kiss with the beautiful young Dora. The flood destroys their homes, disperses their families, and wrecks their innocence. But that kiss will sustain Robert for years to come. Having lost virtually everything in the storm's aftermath, Robert embarks on a journey through the Mississippi hinterland-from a refugee camp to a brothel to the state's fearsome swamp. Trouble follows close on his heels, fueling Robert's conviction that he's marked by the devil. Yet just when he seems to shake off his demons, he's forced to make a choice that will test him as never before.

Teeming with language that Entertainment Weekly hailed as "sun-scorched prose [that] recalls William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, and Cormac McCarthy," Southern Cross the Dog is a tour de force of literary imagination that voices both the savage beauty and complex humanity of the American South.