All of Cedar, Oklahoma, is shocked when Bible-believing Bob Brown and his friend, Pastor Jesus Garcia, are tossed in the county jail for hiding a barn-full of Mexicans. Thanks to an ambitious blonde state legislator and her politically shrewd husband, it’s a felony to harbor an undocumented immigrant in the Sooner State.
It’s bad enough that her Christian daddy is a felon, but now Bob Brown refuses to defend himself, creating a mess of trouble for his daughter, Sweet. She’s got enough on her hands caring for her husband’s bedridden elderly great-grandfather, and trying to keep her son, Carl Albert in line. Now, she’s got her ten-year-old nephew Dustin to worry about, too. A quiet and thoughtful boy, Dustin hasn’t had it easy. His mother is dead, his older sister Misty Dawn is looking for her recently deported husband, and Carl Albert beats up on him. Sweet is trying to hold it all together, but the more she tries to fix things, the faster her life unravels. When Dustin disappears and Misty Dawn shows up with needs of her own, Sweet’s sense of guilt and responsibility drive her to desperate actions that test her family, friends, and neighbors in unexpected and revealing ways.
A story of complicated lawmakers and lawbreakers, Christian principle and political scapegoating, Rilla Askew’s funny and poignant novel explores what happens when upstanding people are pushed too far—and how an ad-hoc family, and ultimately, an entire town, will unite to protect its own.
"Askew writes a very compelling family drama that features a very hot subject these days--immigration, illegal and otherwise. Religion, civil rights, extended families, and the economic struggles of blue collar families all come into play in this multi-layered novel of life in Oklahoma."
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