A teen-age girl is awakened in the wee hours of the morning to serve as her father's getaway driver when he pulls a shotgun robbery at a poker game. A woman bar owner in the French Quarter shoots a drug-addled, would-be robber dead, then covers up the incident with the help of the police. A small boy in Alabama loses his innocence with the death of a goldfish. From the author of The Letter Writer, the engaging Civil War novel, now comes this poignant collection of short stories set along the Gulf Coast that are at once humorous, touching and disturbing portraits of working-class people, and blaze a new trail directly into the heart of the American South.