The Education of Asa Paxton: Coming of Age in the Heart of Dixie

Asa Paxton's northern roots and his family's kinship with a group of Black laborers exacerbate his adolescent years in 1930s Blue Rock, Alabama. Asa and his two only friends, known at school as The Misfit Clique, suffer through puberty's awkward, embarrassing, and sometimes humorous moments. Asa emerges at seventeen a handsome young man, still a pariah with the local belles because of the company his family keeps. In 1938, a New Deal bridge traversing the Tennessee River connects Blue Rock and East Bluff, Mississippi. Asa meets Rosaleigh Pickett, East Bluff's most desirable and fiercely independent debutante. Her father is the elected East Bluff prosecutor. Her mother is local Chairwoman of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Rosaleigh despises Jim Crow laws and the Lost Cause narrative. Sparks fly and romance blossoms between the like-minded young adults. Rosaleigh becomes a bonafide member of the Misfit Clique and the darling of Asa's people. When entanglements erupt between Rosaleigh's father and the Black laborers whom Asa considers his brethren, the young lovers are caught in the middle. Family secrets collide with the force of a tornado, threatening to tear families apart and send the innocent to prison-or worse.

The Education of Asa Paxton offers an historic view of rural life in the South through the eyes of young adults-the self-proclaimed Misfit Clique-who suffer through puberty's awkward, embarrassing, and sometimes humorous moments. Asa emerges at seventeen a handsome young man, still a pariah because of the company his family keeps. Secrets soon collide with the force of a tornado, threatening to tear families apart and send the innocent to prison-or worse.