Delta 'Shine
by
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Hoyt made a beeline for the Red Rose, feeling ready for a real drink. As he pulled into the curb, there was the same sign, The Red Rose, with the two R’s hanging on a bias, just as they had before he left for the war. And when he stepped in, the same smell of stale beer, rotgut whiskey, and cigarettes almost brought tears to his eyes. He looked up and there was Delmar, leaning back in his dirty apron and Junior in his overalls, head down, sound asleep. When Hoyt’s eyes cleared, he saw a woman in a bright red dress with a pair of legs that seemed to stretch forever, legs he could never forget. She turned on her stool as Delmar hollered a greeting and Hoyt knew that it was the highstepper that he had known so well from years before.
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About the Book
When Hoyt Jackson returns to Memphis after World War II, he carries with him a Luger and a load of guilt over the deaths of the men he sent into battle. As he sits in his room above his favorite bar, ready to use the gun on himself, he is saved by a vision of those men. Modernized out of his job as a tinsmith, Hoyt takes his savings and a bottomless mason jar of whiskey and moves to the outskirts of Holly Grove, Mississippi, in his Airstream, intending to live out his life drinking and watching his fields change with each season. Hoyt’s temporary bliss is interrupted by the arrival of a beautiful teenager, Jenny, and her down-and-out family, who Hoyt befriends out of pity and loneliness. As their friendship grows, the two become involved with Sissy, a high-stepper from Hoyt’s past, and Randy, a local high schooler, who rescues Jenny from the town bullies. When these four come face to face with Ethan, an evil moonshiner who is tormented by demons and booze, they have to face the dark side in themselves and the Delta. Their experience echoes into the hearts of the characters and the countryside in which this novel is set.
About the Author
Joe Werner is a retired contractor and the author of two books, The Tinsmith’s Son and Skid Row. As a survivor of the Great Depression, most of his books are set during that time of great economic and personal strife. Delta ‘Shine is his third book and is set in the late 1940s, when moonshine still dotted the back roads between Memphis and rural Mississippi. When not writing, Joe enjoys traveling all over the United States, hitting every golf course in sight with his wife, Amelia.