Thang That Ate My Grandaddy's Dog

One by one, far-flung grown children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren return to Grandma Gert's and Daddy Troy Woodside's farm on the edge of Florida's Oklawaha Swamp in the African American community called Boggy Bottom. The reunited family fills up the main house and overflows into the two abandoned shacks out back. For little Johnny Woodside from New York, the narrator of this debut, each day is an adventure, especially in the forest surrounding the farm and the swamp, which literally crawls with snakes, feral dogs, alligators and lynx. It's a place of learning for Johnny. The teaching takes many forms: Granddaddy puzzles aloud so Johnny can follow the logic; Grandma teaches through storytelling; he learns many things eavesdropping on his aunts. Although the adults' lessons are often incomprehensible to Johnny, the lessons taught by nature and the four hunting dogs who adopt the boy into their pack are starkly fundamental. In Boggy, Johnny starts to cultivate the many kinds of sense it takes to make it to manhood, one hard lesson at a time. Rainey's first novel is a fine accomplishment, an exquisite balance of genuine humor and a feeling for the tenderness and tragedy of life. (May)