Take one paraplegic veteran. Buy him a diner. Add in a waitress that wants to manage not only his lunch counter but his life.

Look out the window and watch an eighteen-wheeler truck drop off a drifter woman carrying a lame dog.

Mix in a confused Vietnamese refugee, the town bully, the town gossip, the clink of diner forks against diner plates, frequent fresh pots of coffee and the banter of all the drawling characters that live in little Sequoyah, Oklahoma, and you have Billy Letts’ book, The Honk and Holler Opening Soon.

You may remember Letts as the author of Where the Heart Is, the story of the teenage girl who birthed her baby in a Wal-Mart.   

If I had to choose between the two books, I’d pick Honk and Holler. Letts brings together a collection of broken bodies, broken businesses, broken relationships, broken buildings, even broken English.   When all these elements touch, everything and everybody starts to heal. I loved the humor, the nosiness, the endearing jealousies, the arguments, the moods, the frustrated plans, the meddlings and tendernesses and come-uppances.

I think you might like them, too.

Photo credits:

Mugs:  EraPhernalia Vintage . . . [”playin’ hook-y”] ;o on Visualhunt.com / CC BY-SA

Men at Counter:   vwcampin on Visualhunt.com / CC BY

Diner Car:   David Hoffman ’41–Mostly off on Visualhunt / CC BY-NC-SA

Flatware:  EraPhernalia Vintage . . . [”playin’ hook-y”] ;o on VisualHunt / CC BY-SA