"You can't help thinking of other coming-of-age novels from the South: Huckleberry Finn or To Kill a Mockingbird."--The New York Times Book Review

Until that September of 1952, Luke Chandler had never kept a secret or told a single lie. But in the long, hot summer of his seventh year, two groups of migrant workers--and two very dangerous men--came through the Arkansas Delta to work the Chandler cotton farm. And suddenly mysteries are flooding Luke's world.

A brutal murder leaves the town seething in gossip and suspicion. A beautiful young woman ignites forbidden passions. A fatherless baby is born . . . and someone has begun furtively painting the bare clapboards of the Chandler farmhouse, slowly, painstakingly, bathing the run-down structure in gleaming white. And as young Luke watches the world around him, he unravels secrets that could shatter lives--and change his family and his town forever.