Wise-cracking Wiley Cantrell is loud and roaringly outrageous -- and he needs to be to keep his deeply religious neighbors and family in the Deep South at bay. A failed writer on food stamps, Wiley works a minimum wage job and barely manages to keep himself and his deaf son, Noah, more than a stone’s throw away from Dumpster-diving. Noah was a meth baby and has the birth defects to prove it. He sees how lonely his father is and tries to help him find a boyfriend while Wiley struggles to help Noah have a relationship with his incarcerated mother, who believes the best way to feed a child is with a slingshot. No wonder Noah becomes Wiley’s biggest supporter when Boston nurse Jackson Ledbetter walks past Wiley’s cash register and sets his sugar tree on fire. Jackson falls like a wet mule wearing concrete boots for Wiley’s sense of humor. And while Wiley represents much of the best of the South, Jackson is hiding a secret that could threaten this new family in the making. When North meets South, the cultural misunderstandings are many, but so are the laughs, and the tears, but, as they say down in Dixie, it’s all good.

Shaking the Sugar Tree

“My son is nine years old,” I said. “He’s deaf. He just wants to see his mother.”


“He does or you do?” the fat one asked.


“I reckon that’s none of your business,” the man said.


I glanced at the trailer. The drapes on the kitchen window were parted slightly. Was Kayla standing there, watching? Why did she have to be such a cornpone bitch?


“Tell her Wiley was here to see her,” I said. “I work at FoodWorld during the morning. She can find me there. Her son would like to talk to her once in a while, that’s all. I’m not asking her for child support or anything else. If she’d like to see her kid once in a while, that would be great.”


“We don’t know no Kayla,” the thin one said, speaking for the first time. He scratched at his face as he spoke. “You with the police?”


“He ain’t with the police, you fuckface idiot,” the fat one said.


“How are we supposed to know?” he asked.


Chapter 27