Growing up in the Bible Belt of the 1980s as a creative, colorful, and sensitive young boy is hard enough, but it's especially hard for River. His hot-tempered father, Mitch Garrison, fights constantly with his wife Rosemary and resents his son's softer side. As River and his sisters come of age, they'll have no choice but to help their mother (and each other) survive a chaotic household. Searing autobiographical fiction drawn heavily from the childhood of Southern artist and writer Don Gaddis.