This book was one of my book group's favorite selections. When we first selected it, I had not anticipated enjoying a story about a couple of comic book creators, but I was pleasantly surprised as the story of these two men was filled with much humor and wisdom about the human condition. My group found much to discuss about the times, the characters, comic books, and more. I'm now definitely a fan of Michael Chabon.

This novel is a typical piece of Southern fiction about good socially conscientious citizens versus evil lawmen and Klansmen. The characters are all stereotypical for this type of literature. The setting is a fictional town in Mississipps where there is the ubiquitous prison farm on which the predominantly black convicts are taken advantage of. The drowning of a baby, supposedly by its black nanny, is the spark that sets off a sequence of events which lead to an ending you can probably accurately guess without even reading the book.