A bawdy, brilliant debut that introduces readers to three generations of a family as they co-exist with the greatest of unease in the present-day American South. Jesmond Toak is a rep man with problems: his relationship with his father is troubled, his pastor's gay son is implicated in the suicide of his boyfriend, and the woman Jesmond loves is married to a threatening man known as Special Ed. Deaths, disaster and disappearances occur in the days leading up to Hurricane Aretha, and Woodward ties together his unruly plot points with madcap glee.