In 1944, fifteen-year-old farm boy George Cooper goes on a Texas-sized mystical journey to find his father, lost in the Second World War.
At the height of the Second World War, George Cooper’s father is captured by the Wehrmacht. After a devastating storm, George leaves behind a mother, grandmother and girlfriend on their Texas farm and joins the Army to search for his missing father in Europe. With no training and borrowed dog tags, he finds himself in a place both foreign and frightening. George finds his way to Germany with help from a Belgian boy and a secret German book, wrecking a plane and freeing a trainload of Jewish prisoners along the way.
Back home his mother struggles to hold the family together. An eccentric aunt and boozing uncle test her patience. A grandmother grieving her dead husband comforts Sarabelle, George’s girlfriend, who has come to live with the Coopers after the storm and the loss of her family.
Set during the greatest struggle of the twentieth century, Buttermilk Moon is a distillation of what it means to be an American—a mythical connection to the land and family and mystic communion with past generations. George’s quest evokes the human will to survive, the human capacity for suffering and the perseverance—at any cost—to be near those we love.
Complete at 88,000 words.