Eleanor Henderson’s second novel is fabulous.  In 1930 in a rural town in Georgia, a young, unmarried white woman gives birth to twins-one black, one white.  On the same night, a young black man is shot full of bullets and then strung up on a gourd tree because some white folks thought he was the father of the black infant.  Are these newborns twins, who are their parents, and what other secret and lies exist along the twelve mile straight?

Henderson’s plot, character development and prose are terrific.  I will not soon forget Nan, Elma and Jukes as well as many of the other finely drawn characters residing in Florence, Georgia.