Paradise, Georgia, USA where black and white have lived together, and in secret loved together for three hundred years; where the white man knows that the dark-skinned man is his blood brother and hates him for it; where the white woman looks on the dark-skinned man with secret lust and longing . . . Out of this shared and silent intimacy, compounded of fear, hatred, sexual guilt and carnal knowledge, springs this starting novel which lays bare the secrets behind the violent deeds of the South.