Heathens - Hardcover

Marcus has the blues. Because his wife, LaDonna, is doing twenty-five days in the Shakopee Women's Detention Center for selling a house she didn't own--and putting a hex on the judge. LaDonna's marketing her own brand of facial creme called Madame LaDonna's Herbal Beauty Care Products. And Marcus' mother, who's got Mormons upstairs and heathens all around, sees her chance to liberate Marcus from that infernal woman at last.

Welcome to the world of the Gabriel family, three generations of curious, headstrong, and frighteningly independent-minded people living in a country called the Midwest. From Marcus' war with his unruly sixth-grade class to his voluptuous neighbor's pursuit of Jesus and the perfect sex life, the Gabriels and their friends are all going a little bit crazy. For with scheming, loving, eternally optimistic LaDonna doing time, this family is falling apart. And now the question is--how far can they slide in twenty-five little days? From one of the freshest new voices in American literature, Heathens is a novel with heart and soul to spare.

"Delightful storytelling."
--Dallas Morning News

"Irreverent, witty and compassionate, Heathens is a laugh-out-loud operetta that sings of the joys and frustrations of middle-class American life...A wonderful, wise book from a talented new writer."
--Ron Rindo, author of Secrets Men Keep

"Haynes demonstrates throughout that he knows that these folk and their problems; that he has eyes that can see a voice that can speak--with wit and even wisdom."
--Publishers Weekly