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

Bill looked at us frankly, standing there with Noah between us. I thought he might be mad, but instead, he offered a small smile.


“Y’all will have to take care of him now since his mother is gone,” Bill said.


“I know you will, Wiley,” he replied. “I know you bothwill.”


His eyes lingered on mine for a long time before he turned away. 68: Protest


On September fifteenth, I packed Noah and my guitar in the back of Jackson’s Jeep and we drove to the headquarters of the American Family Alliance, which was a couple of blocks off West Main in Tupelo, not far from where I worked. We parked in the lot for the skating rink and walked down the block.


Noah and I wore Gay Pride T-shirts despite the chilliness of the afternoon.


Chapter 87