Nathan Winer is unknowingly working for a man who killed his father and has designs on his lover, and who brings with him a satanic force to the deep South. William Tell Oliver is the only member of the community to recognise the evil lurking within in the shape of Dallas Hardin but his inability to act at the most crucial of moments nearly yields disastrous consequences. William Gay's first novel is an epic narrative of love, death, faith and violence. It has earned him comparison with the greatest writers of the American South - Flannery O'Connor, Cormac McCarthy and Tennessee Williams.