Disguised by years in exile and a name she found on a gravestone, an unconventional young woman returns
to her childhood home in rural 1967 Arkansas in this hauntingly visceral Southern tale of desperate choices,
found family, folk magic and noisy ghosts.
Genevieve Charbonneau talks to ghosts and has a special relationship with rattlesnakes. In her travels, she’s
wandered throughout the South, working in a Louisiana circus and as a hootchy kootch dancer in Texas. Now
for the first time in a decade, she’s allowed her winding path to bring her to the site of her grandmother’s
Arkansas farmhouse, a place hallowed in her memory.
Disguised by years in exile and a name she found on a gravestone, Genevieve intends only to visit briefly
and leave. But a chance meeting with a guilt-ridden young Vietnam veteran draws her into more unexpected
connections. Her hard-won independence inspires an abused woman and her daughters to find their own path
to empowerment, and a hypocritical preacher is brought to a long-deserved reckoning.
With undertones of magical realism and dark humor, here is a powerful story of discovering—and sometimes
rediscovering—one’s place in the world, and the unexpected challenges and gifts that present themselves
along the way.
