Perdido River Bastard is a Southern fiction novel written by D.B. Patterson. It's been two years since Duddy Doogan's father was buried in absentia. Brandon Doogan had disappeared and only his wife dared to hope that he was still among the living. Duddy's mother, Brenda, is asking Duddy to make good on a commitment he had made to her and his godmother, Hattie, when he woke up in the hospital after his post-burial-ceremony botched suicide. He'd promised to pay them back for the money they put towards his therapy. His mother doesn't know that Duddy's lost his most recent job, and she's not impressed with the partial repayment he can offer. Brenda's more interested in holding him to the alternative promise he had made to do what she and Hattie asked, with no questions asked. And she expects him to begin the next day.

D.B. Patterson's Southern family saga, Perdido River Bastard, is lush, sprawling, and absolutely marvelous. Duddy's on a quest that he's not even sure he wants to be on, and the women in his family are not going to accept any dissension on his part. Along the way, the reader encounters an array of remarkable and unforgettable characters and delves deeply into the rich history of the Perdido River area. Most of the inhabitants are family members to some degree or other as the roots of the Perdido River family are deeply intertwined, and, somehow, they all become larger than life and very, very real. Perdido River Bastard is beautifully written, and the underlying mysteries of Brandon's disappearance and Duddy's accident are resolved in a masterful fashion. While Southern family sagas are not normally my first choice of genre, I was awed by this powerful and engrossing literary work. Perdido River Bastard is most highly recommended.

I like and admire a job well done. I think I picked that trait up from my father. He was a master builder and craftsman. Perdido River Bastard is a job well done. There are so many genres out there these days that it's hard to get a lot of people excited about literature in the traditional sense. Perdido River Bastard is one of those books that will appeal to any reader who appreciates good writing. It is Southern literature at its best, which is to say it's great literature at its best. Pat Conroy watch out! There's a new kid in town. Every component of this masterpiece rings true but I was particularly moved by the characters (no place does quirky quite like the South) and the setting. I was born and raised in Alabama and Perdido River Bastard made me homesick in a way I haven't felt in a long time.

D.B. Patterson's writing is hauntingly beautiful as the story of "Duddy" Doogan slowly, painfully comes to light. Perdido River Bastard is about secrets. Big, bad, dark, family secrets. No place does that like the South and no one has juicier secrets than Southern women. Perdido River Bastard is a ride through a time and landscape I am intimately familiar with. If you love good writing, you will love Perdido River Bastard. If you love good writing and the deep South, then this book will be a very powerful and moving experience for you. It certainly was for me.