It centers on family life in the 1950’s and 1960’s. We follow Winston Saddlesworth from being an 11year old Yankee boy shooting rattlesnakes in the pecan groves of his grandmother’s farm in Florida, back to Chicago where he in high school gets involved with gangsters in order to romance the alluring Camilla. His trespasses costs him a scarred nose and a send off as an enlisted soldier first with a stint in Bolivia to catch Che Guevara, next to Vietnam towards the end of the war where he gets involved with the Phoenix program.
Some magical realism keeps the reader alert throughout the book. The tales are tall and entertaining. Harper’s clever fiction mirrors the strangeness of life.
Winston returns home wounded from the war and suffering from PTSD. It is the group meetings with fellow soldiers and the heart warming no nonsense love of his grandmother that brings him back to life.