Pretty Black's Hole (ePub)

In the Year of the Tadpoles, a migrant labor cotton camp in Arizona, affectionately known as the Head, becomes a playground for the Six Graces and their playmate, the Petty God of Irony. Having bequeathed a 'difference' to a teenager, known as Deakie Boy, these Supernaturals intended to sit back and be amused by the adverse consequences of his difference. They lose control of their heir and it will be decades and many horrors later before They regain it. In the same year, in the middle of a cotton field, a young girl, known as Pretty Black, finds a hole-six feet around, its walls held in place by a tin cylinder. With two sheets of tin, Pretty adds a roof to make the hole a home away from the crowded camp. Instead of the privacy she seeks, Pretty collides with Deakie Boy's difference. Like mangy dogs hunting scraps, men are ever on the prowl, inspiring Deakie Boy and his sidekick, Bubba Joe, to find a hideous use for Pretty's home. These acts of horror and degradation in the Year of the Tadpoles will connect back across generations of entangled family histories to reveal a legacy the Supernaturals did not anticipate. With the legacy of Deakie Boy's difference threatening to destroy the future of three young couples, led by Jean Elizabeth and Robert Reed, the couples (sometimes honestly, sometimes lying through their teeth) work together to discover and prevent the destructive purpose. Why do frogs represent the purpose? Who is following Jean Elizabeth, and why? Struggling for answers, they engage a private investigator (who is as crooked a dog's hind leg), and are assisted by friends (who seldom deserve the label).