Sharing
the hospital room with him is a teenage girl named Minnie who had fallen at the
diner where she works, knocking her head on the floor. The fall was a result of
fainting when she was told her mother had just committed suicide, her father is
in prison, she’s never met him. Her unconscious singing annoyed Nub.
Nub,
age 62, is divorced, with an adult daughter named Emily he has a hostile
relationship with because he was either never there, or embarrassingly drunk
throughout most of her life. He was not a good father, and they both know it.
Minnie was
relentless teased at school because she is awkward, a “jolly green giant,” poor,
and worked to support her dysfunctional mother. With the death of her mother,
and the incarceration of her father, Minnie is about to become a ward of the
State.
Long, but great, story short, Nub works to become her foster parent, freaking out the social workers, not to mention his biological daughter. He’s a misfit, she’s a misfit, and they share one particularly important bond: his father committed suicide when he was a kid, and her mother committed suicide while she is still a kid. The relationship is heartbreaking and heartwarming.
The
story of these two unlikely people is priceless. As are some of the other main
characters in the novel: his daughter Emily; Benny, Nub’s cousin, drinking buddy and best friend;
LeighAnn, the bartender at the Legion Post who becomes his AA support buddy;
and Burke, the town’s Mayberry-like cop.
There
are three substories going on in this novel. First, is the small-town norm Baptist
atmosphere it takes place in (observations not a religious critique). Second, are
country & gospel music and the Grand Ole Opry. Third is a crime subplot,
why Minnie’s biological father was in prison.
