"Christmas 1982: Cornelius and Bella McCorkle of Pascagoula, Mississippi, return one stormy midnight from the funeral of their older son to a house and a life literally falling apart--daughter Joanie is in an asylum and their younger son Charlie is upstairs having sex with his pregnant, holy-roller girlfriend as the McCorkles enter. In this dark, expressionistic comedy, what he called his "Southern Gothic Spook Sonata," Williams brilliantly chronicles the fragile state of our world"--Page 4 of cover.