Based on real events during the bloody Civil Rights era, a prize-winning author draws from his Alabama childhood to deliver an electrifying coming-of-age novel. Sonny Poe is a scrappy working-class white boy about to start high school when he and a buddy are out in the cool summertime woods shooting their .22 rifles. What happens that night will alter the course of young Sonny's life as the two boys bear witness to a mob of Klansmen viciously beat then lynch a black man.Traumatized and desperate for guidance, the fatherless boy latches onto a progressive doctor with a crusading spirit. But no matter his good intentions, "Doctor Joe" eventually turns Sonny's and his own mysterious life upside down in a tension-fueled journey repeatedly wounded by betrayal, corruption and blood, a painful but fearless adventure that can only end in tragedy - yet hope.Narrated in the unfiltered voice of the teenager during the most violent years leading up to the Civil Rights Act, the story becomes a visual trip through one of the roughest eras of national divisiveness. Freedom, as Sonny discovers being white, depends on your allegiance to the segregationist status quo and a century-old Confederate tradition. In the vein of To Kill a Mockingbird, Kirkus Reviews calls the novel "profound ... engrossing, full of nuance and wholly unpredictable ... a heartbreakingly real novel of the South.""Argo humanizes his characters and brings all the tensions of the era vividly to life. His skillful narration makes this a visceral, memorable novel." Historical Novel Society"Disturbing and raw, you won't put it down, even if your heart bleeds at times." Readers' Favorite
