The Goat's Song

Cade Parnell is a dreamy young man, shunned by his family, who dreams of normalcy in the medicinal world of US Marine Hospital 66 in post-depression Louisiana. Jefferson Armistead is a petty thief, raised in poverty by his beloved Granny Slocomb. A difficult young man, he only cares about scraping out a living. Together these two lost boys form an unlikely partnership, turning a derelict barrel workshop deep in the swamp kingdom of Chêne Bayou into a successful and growing concern called Cooper's Lodge. But brutal circumstance isn't finished with the two and with the US entry into WWII, they are forced to separate.

Through the war years the two men take wildly divergent tacks. Cade molds a brutal criminal enterprise in southern Louisiana. Jefferson begins an unusual spiritual journey as he struggles to survive the ennui of a Gerrman POW camp. By December 1946, Cade and Jefferson find themselves in Atlanta, GA on the eve of one final tragic event that will bring them together for the last time, but not in a way you might expect.