A New York Times Notable Book. For his seventh novel, Clyde Edgerton returns to the setting of his own childhood--rural North Carolina at mid-twentieth century. This beguiling novel tells the story of a tight-knit crossroads community and what happens when a quick-change artist stops for gas and an oil check, sees opportunities, and decides to stop there for a while. "You'll spend a lot of time laughing and wiping your eyes and reading passages aloud to anyone who'll listen."--Boston Globe; "This may be Edgerton's best novel ever. I say that each time I finish one of his books."--Newark Star-Ledger ; "Edgerton, evoking Flannery O'Connor, composed chatty, tone-perfect tales of small town life that illuminate the knife edge between satire and nostalgia." --Entertainment Weekly; "A slyly satiric and artful story . . . Edgerton reveals the innocent, the deluded, and the hypocritical with an unerring sense of humor and truth."--Publishers Weekly; "In the pitch-perfect tradition of Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner, Edgerton spins things wildly, masterfully, hilariously out of control."--Maxim.