Hollow Ground

the long version

"When Gary left Zinctown, Tennessee, fourteen years ago, he left behind a father he couldn't please, a long-dead brother whose memory was inescapable, and a girl who was carrying his child. He hadn't planned on coming back." "But he did.". "Zinctown is where he discovers his fourteen-year-old son, Taft, for the very first time. And it's where Taft, no longer a child but not quite a man, finds himself contending with three men vying to be his role model: the father who abandoned him, his ex-convict uncle, and a grandfather whose eyes are focused on the past. On hand to explain it all to him is Tanya, who ushers Taft through the doors of adulthood a little faster than he's ready to go, explaining the intricacies of girlhood ("on Fridays I wear blue underpants"), and coaxing him on a plan to do away with her mother."--BOOK JACKET.