Southern Cross the Dog

In the tradition of Cormac McCarthy and Flannery O’Connor, Bill Cheng leads the new generation of American greats. When the Great Flood of 1927 devastates Mississippi, eight-year-old Robert Chatham loses everything. Robert’s adventures in the brooding swamplands – from hard labour to imprisonment to thwarted love – are full of courage, danger and heartbreak. This is story of how a small, hurt boy becomes a tough young man: forced to choose between the lure of the future and the claims of his past. Set against one of the great American landscapes, Southern Cross the Dog is a mesmerizing and savagely beautiful novel. It marks the arrival of Bill Cheng as a writer of astonishing gifts.