Littlejohn

“Enchanting . . . a warm and generous novel, a heartfelt celebration of the human spirit.”—The New York Times Book Review

Set in rural North Carolina, on the sweltering August day in which its narrator sets out to end his life, this haunting novel introduces us to one of the most engaging and convincingly heroic characters in Southern fiction.

At the age of eighty-two, Littlejohn McCain is a dirt farmer whose religious faith springs from an intimate knowledge of despair. He is a one-time illiterate who learned to read in middle age; a man who married late to become an unexpectedly ardent husband and tender father; an accidental killer who has spent his life trying to redeem himself.

Littlejohn, in short, is one of those people whose circumscribed lives produce spirits of astonishing depth. And Littlejohn is one of those novels whose sense of tragedy coexists with wry humor and a voice as unmistakable as the strains of bluegrass music.