In the town of Drayton, Alabama, the once high-paying manufacturing jobs have been replaced by nail salons and bail bonds. Pete-O Hemper, a diabetic amputee in a wheelchair, feels betrayed by the America he once loved and believed in. On a steady diet of hate radio, he blames everyone around him for trying to remake his country into a place where men like him are no longer in control. Pete-O’s nephew, Robert, jailed on assault charges, is desperate for money and hatches a plan to rob a meth lab. Pete-O’s sister, Lilith Ann, the exhausted matriarch of this family, struggles to hold everyone together when Pete-O brings a Chinese bride to America with a past as dark as his. Sometimes darkly funny, A Body’s Just as Dead captures the 21st century frustration of small-town families who feel the American Dream is in shreds and resent having to share its remnants with people who “aren’t like us.”

Meet the author Cathy Adams from 1 pm – 3 pm on August 18th.