On certain nights when the moon was full and Lavis was on his way to getting blind drunk, he would drive Zeb out to his old homeplace on the Choctoosie River. So begins the story of Zeb Dupree, a musician struggling to find his spiritual and emotional bearings in the wake of his father's suicide and his own failed marriage. Against a richly textured Southern background, Stephen March has fashioned a story of one man's search for redemption and his escape from his father's legacy. In nominating Catbird for the Marmdouha S. Bobst Literary Award, novelist and poet Fred Chappell wrote, Mr. March has the ability to portray a bleak reality in unflinching terms and yet motivate his character with such inner strength that his eventual betterment--one cannot quite call it a victory--is warmly convincing.
