Young professor Oliver Hardin settles in at Georgia Southeastern College, happy to be back home in Satilla County: "Cock-a-doodle-do. This rooster has come home to roost. Bring your mugs, boys. The keg is iced down. The pork is on the pit. And the chicks are on the way." Then, in the year he expects to become a tenured professor, storm clouds gather. Discord among the English faculty, a developing romance with a student, the prospect of being fired, a night in jail, a cock fight that goes wrong, and the loss of a close friend cause Oliver to see Satilla County in a new light and to re-define what "home" means. The third of Oscar Patton's southern novels, A Place to Call Home is a comic tale with tragic elements.