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

“You’re in Papa Wiley’s hands now. Stop sobbing, city slicker.”


Outside, I drove two of the three four-wheelers from the standing garage where Mama kept them. Jackson seemed highly skeptical.


“Little kids can drive these things,” I said. “Man up!”


He practiced driving in the yard and discovered that it was so simple even a Yankee could do it.


It was pushing five when we finally set off, the four-wheelers loaded and ready to roll. I led the way across Mama’s huge backyard to the trees and hills beyond and we were quickly swallowed by towering pines, oaks, and elms. We followed the path along the riverbank, heading deep into the woods where it was hotter, the air thick with humidity, and the undergrowth out of control.


Noah sat behind me, holding onto my waist. He kept an eye on Jackson to make sure he didn’t have trouble or get lost.


Chapter 45