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

Sitting there, talking about it, thinking about it, considering it, watching Juan’s lovely brown eyes so full of life and raw emotion, thinking about the brown skin beneath his T-shirt—I was suddenly very horny.


I led him to my bedroom and shut the door. 24: You Can Play in My Garden


On Friday evening, as Noah played on his Xbox, I got my guitar and sat down on a chair in the kitchen. I didn’t play anymore. I didn’t sing. Not like I used to. My fingers remembered the familiar chords and I strummed and hummed softly to myself. The guitar was seriously out of tune. From long habit, I tuned it by ear. I needed to practice, get ready for the protest.


One of the songs I’d written in my younger years was called “Sweet Thing,” and it still rang out clear and vivid in my mind. It was one of our more popular songs when I was with Southern Nights.


Chapter 29