A calico cat, about to have kittens, hears the lonely howl of a chained-up hound
deep in the backwaters of the bayou. She dares to find him in the forest, and t
he hound dares to befriend this cat, this feline, this creature he is supposed t
o hate. They are an unlikely pair, about to become an unlikely family. Ranger ur
ges the cat to hide underneath the porch, to raise her kittens there because Gar
-Face, the man living inside the house, will surely use them as alligator bait s
hould he find them. But they are safe in the Underneath...as long as they stay i
n the Underneath.
Kittens, however, are notoriously curious creatures. And o
ne kitten's one moment of curiosity sets off a chain of events that is astonishi
ng, remarkable, and enormous in its meaning. For everyone who loves Sounder, Shi
loh, and The Yearling, for everyone who loves the haunting beauty of writers suc
h as Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Flannery O'Connor, and Carson McCullers, Kathi Ap
pelt spins a harrowing yet keenly sweet tale about the power of love -- and its
opposite, hate -- the fragility of happiness and the importance of making good o
n your promises.
