Douglas Morgan Sykes

Mothers of Dane Douglas Morgan Sykes

A young Southerner, Quentin Breed, desperately flees from a Vietnam draft notice and the FBI, hoping to find refuge with a little-known relative, a family outcast, in a tiny Virginia town with the strange name of Mothers of Dane. A stunning turn of events, however, leads him into the bizarre world of the oddly-spelled GRO. ANd GLUF, a country store near the town where Quentin, broke and using an alias, must take a temporary job to fund a new plan for escape.

When crime savagely strikes the GRO. ANd GLUF, though, Quentin surprises even himself by running headlong into harm's way, but this reckless act also forces him to flee again on the spur of the moment, wounded this time and pursued by a ferocious local deputy who's obsessed with uncovering his true identity. And as this pursuit unfolds, circumstances finally force Quentin to face a deadly question about himself: Can he-will he-kill in order to escape?

With its shocking surprises and unforgettable characters (including Peepeyes, Handyhand, and three redneck brothers named Arliss, Barliss, and Carliss), Mothers of Dane has won Best Novel prizes from both the Hackney Literary Awards and the Eugene Walter Writers Festival.