An epic odyssey in which a young man must choose between the lure of the future and the claims of the past

With clouds looming on the horizon, a group of children play among the roots of the gnarled Bone Tree. Their games will be interrupted by a merciless storm-bringing with it the Great Flood of 1927-but not before Robert Chatham shares his first kiss with the beautiful young Dora. The flood destroys their homes, disperses their families, and wrecks their innocence. But that kiss will sustain Robert for years to come. Having lost virtually everything in the storm's aftermath, Robert embarks on a journey through the Mississippi hinterland-from a refugee camp to a brothel to the state's fearsome swamp. Trouble follows close on his heels, fueling Robert's conviction that he's marked by the devil. Yet just when he seems to shake off his demons, he's forced to make a choice that will test him as never before.

Teeming with language that Entertainment Weekly hailed as "sun-scorched prose that] recalls William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, and Cormac McCarthy," Southern Cross the Dog is a tour de force of literary imagination that voices both the savage beauty and complex humanity of the American South.

When the Great Flood of 1927 devastates Mississippi, eight-year-old Robert Chatham loses everything. Robert's adventures in the brooding swamplands - from hard labour to imprisonment to thwarted love - are full of courage, danger and heartbreak. This is story of how a small, hurt boy becomes a tough, young man: forced to choose between the lure of the future and the claims of his past. Set against one of the great American landscapes, Southern Cross the Dog is a mesmerizing and savagely beautiful novel. It marks the arrival of Bill Cheng as a writer of astonishing gifts.