Barbie, a drifter, ex-army, walks with a burden of guilt from the time he spent in Iraq. Working as a short-order cook at Sweetbriar Rose is the closest thing he’s had to a family life. When his old commander, Colonel Cox, calls from outside, Barbie’s burden becomes the town itself.
“Big Jim.” A used car dealer with a fierce smile and no warmth, he’d given his heart to Jesus at age sixteen and had little left for his customers, his neighbors, or his dying wife and deteriorating son. The town’s Second Selectman, he’s used to having things his way. He walks like a man who has spent his life kicking ass.
Scarecrow Joe, a 13-year-old also known as “King of the Geeks” and “Skeletor, a bona fide brain whose backpack bears the legend “FIGHT THE POWERS THAT BE.” He’s smarter than anyone, and proves it in a crisis. Visit Joe’s blog: www.scarecrowjoe.com
The attractive Editor and Publisher of the local town newspaper, The Chester’s Mill Democrat, Julia is self-assured and Republican to the core, but she is drawn to Barbie and discovers, when it matters most, that her most vulnerable moment might be her most liberating.
Julia Shumway’s beloved old Corgi, a little gray about the muzzle but his eyes still bright and his ears cocked alertly. Always ready for a walk. And always hungry.
“Junior.” A frat boy with something to prove, and what he can’t prove himself he’ll prove using friends like Carter Thibodeau, Melvin Searles and Frank DeLesseps. He suffers headaches that make him feel like one mean motherfucker. He’s one sick motherfucker, too.
A childless widow, the motherly proprietor of Sweetbriar Rose, the town’s popular eatery, Rose gave Barbie his job as a short-order cook and is instrumental in quelling the riot at Food City. Her siblings are Andrea Grinnell, the town’s Third Selectman, and Dougie Twitchell, a nurse at Catherine Russell Hospital.
Owner of the Mill’s pharmacy and the town’s First Selectman, Sanders does what he’s told, especially when Big Jim Rennie is doing the telling, and he’s made a lot of money that way—he’s the Mortimer Snerd dummy that sits on Rennie’s lap.
A childless widow, the motherly proprietor of Sweetbriar Rose, the town’s popular eatery, Rose gave Barbie his job as a short-order cook and is instrumental in quelling the riot at Food City. Her siblings are Andrea Grinnell, the town’s Third Selectman, and Dougie Twitchell, a nurse at Catherine Russell Hospital.
Owner of the Mill’s pharmacy and the town’s First Selectman, Sanders does what he’s told, especially when Big Jim Rennie is doing the telling, and he’s made a lot of money that way—he’s the Mortimer Snerd dummy that sits on Rennie’s lap.
A childless widow, the motherly proprietor of Sweetbriar Rose, the town’s popular eatery, Rose gave Barbie his job as a short-order cook and is instrumental in quelling the riot at Food City. Her siblings are Andrea Grinnell, the town’s Third Selectman, and Dougie Twitchell, a nurse at Catherine Russell Hospital.
Owner of the Mill’s pharmacy and the town’s First Selectman, Sanders does what he’s told, especially when Big Jim Rennie is doing the telling, and he’s made a lot of money that way—he’s the Mortimer Snerd dummy that sits on Rennie’s lap.
A childless widow, the motherly proprietor of Sweetbriar Rose, the town’s popular eatery, Rose gave Barbie his job as a short-order cook and is instrumental in quelling the riot at Food City. Her siblings are Andrea Grinnell, the town’s Third Selectman, and Dougie Twitchell, a nurse at Catherine Russell Hospital.
Owner of the Mill’s pharmacy and the town’s First Selectman, Sanders does what he’s told, especially when Big Jim Rennie is doing the telling, and he’s made a lot of money that way—he’s the Mortimer Snerd dummy that sits on Rennie’s lap.
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