Putting down this wonderfully sensitive, affecting memoir, I half expected to see wavy fumes — smelling of tobacco, crawfish, beer, rain — rising from the book itself.
Though she has lived in Portland for years, Washington Post reporter Casey Parks has an abiding affection for the small-town Louisiana of her childhood. Her thoughts turn frequently to scenes of her grandma and her mother sitting in a carport in their nightgowns, smoking cigarettes and telling stories that often cling loosely to the truth.
Parks' grandma vividly recalls Roy Hudgins, an "earthly angel" who lived across the street from her in Delhi, La. (pronounced "dell-high").
