April 17, 2006
Yarbrough returns to Loring, Miss. (setting of his acclaimed Prisoners of War
and Visible Spirits
), to examine the intersecting lives of two contemporary family men in this sensitive but powerful smalltown portrait of sex, religion and other human passions. Following an explosive sex scandal, successful physician Pete Barrington flees California, with wife Angela and their teenage daughter in tow, for the Southern town he left 25 years before. There he encounters Alan Depoyster, another native son, now managing a Piggly Wiggly and caring for a wife and teenager of his own. Alan, a devout Christian, holds a grudge from their high school days, when Alan's mother carried on an affair with Pete. Shortly thereafter, Alan's dad deserted them, and Pete escaped Loring on a Fresno State football scholarship. As circumstances bring the Barringtons and Depoysters closer, and evidence of Pete and Angela's continuing sexual indiscretions come to light, rage and jealousy lead Alan to shocking measures, setting up the book's suspenseful, shattering second half. Yarbrough gives each character in his slow-burning drama the complex emotional scars of broken marriage and, more importantly, the space and voice with which to explore them.