A satirical comedy of manners featuring the morbidly obese Norman Laney, an unorthodox, inspirational English teacher and college counsellor for an elite private school in Mountain Brook, a privileged community outside of Birmingham. A natural wonder from blue-collar Alabama, Laney has barged into the exclusive world of Mountain Brook on the strength of his sensational figure and its several-hundred-pound commitment to art and culture.

Katherine Clark holds an A.B. degree in English from Harvard and a Ph.D. in English from Emory. She is the coauthor of the oral biographies Motherwit: An Alabama Midwife's Story, with Onnie Lee Logan, and Milking the Moon: A Southerner's Story of Life on This Planet with Eugene Walter (a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle award). A former student of Martin Hames, the inspiration for the character of Norman Laney, Clark has written three additional Mountain Brook novels featuring Laney and his students--All the Governor's Men, The Harvard Bride, and The Ex-Suicide, all forthcoming from the University of South Carolina Press imprint Story River Books. Clark is currently collaborating with Pat Conroy on his oral biography, also forthcoming from the University of South Carolina Press. She lives on the Florida Gulf Coast.