Littlejohn McCain, an 82-year-old North Carolina farmer, goes out into the Blue Sandhills on the hottest day of the year to sit in the afternoon sun on the edge of Maxwell's Millpond, wait for the monkey, and pray for an act of God. Why? The protagonist of Howard Owen's first novel is a man whose father lost a leg in the Civil War, and whose daughter and grandson are fighting more personal battles in the very different world of the late 20th century. Littlejohn, the man in the middle, lives in East Geddie, which is, oddly, southwest of Geddie itself. Like the town in which he's spent his life, Littlejohn is not as he appears. Now, in the summer of 1989, with the loose ends all tied up, he reflects on a life that has been filled with terrible secrets and unexpected redemption, a life of Old Testament proportions. Beneath a facade as calm and ordinary as a Presbyterian hymn, Littlejohn McCain is an uncommon man who has led a most uncommon life.