Synopses & Reviews
In the waning days of one of the most unrecognized American exoduses of the twentieth-century, millions of broken people have left the strip mines of Appalachia in search of better things. In 1961, two of these yearning souls Dahlia Jean Coker, the teenage daughter of a sluttish mother and a deadbeat Daddy, and "Twitch," an ex-con descended from the legendary outlaw Younger clan are looking for their own ways out. After a botched robbery by Twitch, Dahlia takes the lead with Twitch's loot and his teenage son while the old man gives chase, with revenge in his heart and Dahlia's mother by his side. Through the South, and finally on to a Key West reeling from the Bay of Pigs debacle, the chase is at once thrilling, heartbreaking, murderous, dark, and hilarious. Along the way, readers encounter a snake-handling evangelist, determined civil rights activists, equally determined Klansmen, and the unfortunate wife of an adulterous NASA scientist. Battling a Tennessee flood of biblical proportions and a looming Florida hurricane, Dahlia, Twitch, and their improbable traveling companions all land up at Dahlia's daddy's houseboat. The final showdown, with a fortune and dreams of a better life at stake, will have readers marveling.
Review
"Ambitious, unpretentious, yet not memorable. There's just too much here, and Jackson's only-serviceable prose isn't up to the epic scale of the work." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"[A] bit uneven....Although Jackson's style can be intoxicating, the story loses momentum the closer Dahlia gets to Key West." Library Journal
Synopsis
A picaresque novel of social realism set in the 1960s south.
Synopsis
In the waning days of an unrecognized American exodus, broken people left the strip mines of Appalachia in search of better things. Battling a Tennessee flood and a looming Florida hurricane, Dahlia, Twitch, and their companions land at Dahlia's daddy's houseboat. The final showdown, with a fortune and dreams of a better life at stake, will have readers marveling.