The two main occupations in Limoges, Louisiana (population: 905), seem to be spreading juicy gossip and consoling the unfortunate with casseroles. And in this early spring of 1952, there is ample opportunity for both—with sixteen-year-old and pregnant (by the Baptist minister) Olive Nepper, currently languishing in a coma after drinking pop laced with rose poison. But the plight of Olive and her family is hardly the only story spicing up the rumor mill in this small Southern community of unpredictable eccentrics, wandering husbands, and unsatisfied wives—and few local sins will be put right by home cooking. From Michael Lee West comes a beautifully rendered portrait of small-town Southern life, filled with humanity that brilliantly weaves comedy with dark calamity. The two main occupations in Limoges, Louisiana (population: 905), seem to be spreading juicy gossip and consoling the unfortunate with casseroles. And in this early spring of 1952, there is ample opportunity for both—with sixteen-year-old and pregnant (by the Baptist minister) Olive Nepper, currently languishing in a coma after drinking pop laced with rose poison. But the plight of Olive and her family is hardly the only story spicing up the rumor mill in this small Southern community of unpredictable eccentrics, wandering husbands, and unsatisfied wives—and few local sins will be put right by home cooking. From Michael Lee West comes a beautifully rendered portrait of small-town Southern life, filled with humanity that brilliantly weaves comedy with dark calamity. Michael Lee West is the author of Mad Girls in Love , Crazy Ladies , American Pie , She Flew the Coop , and Consuming Passions . She lives with her husband on a rural farm in Tennessee with three bratty Yorkshire terriers, a Chinese Crested, assorted donkeys, chickens, sheep, and African Pygmy goats. Her faithful dog Zap (above) was the inspiration for a character in the novel. She Flew the COOP A Novel Concerning Life, Death, Sex and Recipes in Limoges, Louisiana By West, Michael Lee Perennial Copyright © 2004 Michael Lee West All right reserved. ISBN: 0060926201 Down to Earth Gardens come and go, but I find myself getting attached to certain perennials. My tulips are bridesmaids with fat faces and good posture. Hollyhocks are long-necked sisters. Daffodils are young girls running out of a white church, sun shining on their heads. Peonies are pink-haired ladies, so full and stooped you have to tie them up with string. And roses are nothing but (I hate to say it) bitches--pretty show-offs who'll draw blood if you don't handle them just right. --Vangie Galliard Nepper, from her "Garden Diary," March 1952 Vangie Nepper I've always loved dirt. It's dark and moist like a lump of chocolate cake in your hand. You think it will taste sweet, but it's bitter as gall. My daddy, Major Galliard, grew cotton, and he used to say that soil was the basis of his life. Mama always laughed and said, "I thought Jack Daniel's was." The drink killed my daddy, but the soil remained firm and cool beneath my knees. High above me, over Lake Limoges, a plane droned in circles. It made a slow loop, crawling along the backside of the sky like a bug caught inside an overturned glass bowl. I heard the noise and looked up, shielding my eyes with pruning shears. I knew the pilot from the way he drew out a check mark, his signature jettison. Sometimes the sky was slashed all over the delta, the marks widening into V's. Emmett Welch was the best crop duster in north Louisiana. Today, though, it was too early for dusting. He was up there because he loved it. My daddy believed that sitting in a cockpit was like praying. The whole sky was his church. Sundays used to hurt Mama--all the other husbands sitting with their wives, fanning their sweaty babies. Daddy would be somewhere above us, his plane chewing up the blue, flying so low the stained-glass windows trembled. My daddy taught Emmett to fly in 1922, a day that broke my heart. Emmett was a bowlegged kid working at Galliard Gin. His poor old daddy got gassed in World War I, and his mama ran off to Shreveport. Daddy was known for hand-picking his pilots, mostly orphans, training them himself. Emmett Welch had gray, close-set eyes that took in everything. My daddy knew that look. There was precious little he didn't know. He'd fought in every war that came along, even World War I. He was too old for the second one, but a crony pulled some strings with the recruiting office in Monroe. Major Galliard, they called him. A veteran who'd never seen action. Still, he had a chest full of medals, awards for perfect attendance and cleanliness. But he was an unsung hero when it came to picking pilots. He called Emmett into the knotty pine office and said, "Boy, get you some goggles and climb up in that cockpit and wait till I get ready. I'm gone teach you to fly." I'd been sitting under my daddy's wide oak desk, carving my i