Bip's mother told him to stay away from Lilith, a local black "witch" who also provides the dry county with alcohol. That mystery is all Bip needs as impetus to seek her out. Set in a small, West Texas town, racial differences, a murder, and rites of passage thread Bip through the rough skin of the community. Richly comic and laugh out loud funny, the characters of the community stumble through racial incongruities that have slept too long to discern the fact that we are all human-whether we act that way or not.