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“Bottom soil is the richest sewing ground,” says Ellie Moon, a 31-year-old woman, recently divorced, whose grieving is interrupted by the sudden appearance of her long-lost father Tiny. An enormous man with a voracious appetite for great cigars, bar-b-que and high stakes poker games, Tiny whisks Ellie off on a picaresque road trip from St. Louis to New Orleans.
Tiny abandoned his family when Ellie was still a girl. Ellie hopes to find out why. Together, they ramble down the great Mississippi via gambling halls, hidden moonshine stills, illegal eating contests and the magnolia draped home of the nicest ex-hooker turned retired suburban angel named Ludine. Amidst the smell of “Wild Root Creme Oil” and illegal Havanas, Ludine hosts $100,000 poker fests and counts backyard birds in her kitchen. She believes kindness and having fun and keeping things light are all that’s required of us in this life. But Ellie’s life, like the Main Street of her old hometown Cairo, Illinois, is “currently in a stagnant drift.”
As sidekick in her father’s dangerous flight from poker game to poker game, with an angry bent-hearted sheriff chasing them, Ellie confronts the forgotten demons from her past. She does this in the company of her selfish, life-gulping, repentant father. And Tiny gives his daughter a gift at last--an infusion of life lived hard and wild. In “Mississippi Flyway,” you will meet a few wild-flying women and delve into the muddy hearts of men who live for gambling. It’s a Southern tale, after all. Pack up, jump in. Nel Rand is your steady guide.
The greatest fascination for me as reader was the life of big-stakes gamblers. We all long for complete immersion in something we love, and Rand paints the sweaty long gambling scenes with real understanding. These men took me out of my world and offered another in its place. Sites, sounds, smells, attitudes--their non-traditional lives made sense to this rather traditional woman. "Mississippi Flyway" holds moments of genuine grace. I really look forward to Rand's next novel!
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Mississippi Flyway by Nel Rand
barbarakayrich, March 24, 2010
Pack Up. Jump In. Get Muddy.“Bottom soil is the richest sewing ground,” says Ellie Moon, a 31-year-old woman, recently divorced, whose grieving is interrupted by the sudden appearance of her long-lost father Tiny. An enormous man with a voracious appetite for great cigars, bar-b-que and high stakes poker games, Tiny whisks Ellie off on a picaresque road trip from St. Louis to New Orleans.
Tiny abandoned his family when Ellie was still a girl. Ellie hopes to find out why. Together, they ramble down the great Mississippi via gambling halls, hidden moonshine stills, illegal eating contests and the magnolia draped home of the nicest ex-hooker turned retired suburban angel named Ludine. Amidst the smell of “Wild Root Creme Oil” and illegal Havanas, Ludine hosts $100,000 poker fests and counts backyard birds in her kitchen. She believes kindness and having fun and keeping things light are all that’s required of us in this life. But Ellie’s life, like the Main Street of her old hometown Cairo, Illinois, is “currently in a stagnant drift.”
As sidekick in her father’s dangerous flight from poker game to poker game, with an angry bent-hearted sheriff chasing them, Ellie confronts the forgotten demons from her past. She does this in the company of her selfish, life-gulping, repentant father. And Tiny gives his daughter a gift at last--an infusion of life lived hard and wild. In “Mississippi Flyway,” you will meet a few wild-flying women and delve into the muddy hearts of men who live for gambling. It’s a Southern tale, after all. Pack up, jump in. Nel Rand is your steady guide.
The greatest fascination for me as reader was the life of big-stakes gamblers. We all long for complete immersion in something we love, and Rand paints the sweaty long gambling scenes with real understanding. These men took me out of my world and offered another in its place. Sites, sounds, smells, attitudes--their non-traditional lives made sense to this rather traditional woman. "Mississippi Flyway" holds moments of genuine grace. I really look forward to Rand's next novel!