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 mentioned cochlear implants,” I added, “which raises a flag with some people, including me. To install these implants, the doctors have to destroy part of the inner ear. They do this without really knowing whether the implants are going to help or not. Thing is, once it’s done, the child will never be able to hear anything again on their own. If the implants fail, well, you’re just out of luck because the ears have been irreparably damaged. If they work, your child might have some hearing, but probably not very much. So it’s risky and there’s no guarantee how much they’ll help, or whether they’ll help at all.”


“You’d advise against it?” Stella asked.


Chapter 62