The South of these nine stories is filled with tension, crisis, and decision: a man walks out of prison only to entangle himself in the strands of his malevolent past; a diabolic stranger sets a small community against itself; a family clothes its poverty with genteel pretense; a wife acquiesces to her husband and in-laws' connivance over a forged will.

From the black bayou waters of Louisiana to the red clay gullies of Alabama's pine woods, in the menacing shadows of the Pair-a-Dice Bar and around a family kitchen table by the first light of morning, Shirley Ann Grau's characters face the enormity of death, dream of crossing the color line, and test themselves and others in a variety of ways.

An honest and unsentimental writer, Grau has created a remarkable range of characters and situations that will haunt readers' memories long after their stories have been set aside.