Serpent World

Serpent World
by Tony W. Arnold
Some families collect vacation photos. The Whisanants collect roadside legends.
Seven-year-old Doyce Whisanant just wants to know one thing: when do I get to go somewhere fun? While his baby brother rides off with Aunt Fannie and Uncle Smoky, and his cousin Floyle chases half-remembered attractions across the map, Doyce is left behind with his grandmother's cast-iron cooking, her unhurried country wisdom, and a family secret nobody thought to mention.
What follows is a sprawling, deeply funny, deeply American odyssey through the backroads and byways of a vanishing South — a world of hand-canned tomatoes, station-wagon Naugahyde, half-remembered kinfolk, and one legendary roadside attraction that looms larger with every mile: Serpent World itself, five hundred writhing reasons to believe the journey was worth it.
Equal parts coming-of-age story, family folklore, and love letter to the golden age of the American roadside attraction — the mom-and-pop wonders bulldozed by mega-corporate sameness — Serpent World is roadside recreational fiction at its most gloriously unhinged and unexpectedly tender. Tony W. Arnold writes with the eye of a folklorist and the mouth of your funniest, most unfiltered uncle, spinning a story that's as much about what gets left behind as what gets found on the open road.
Equal parts Thoreau and truck-stop wisdom, Serpent World asks the question every backseat kid has wondered: what's out there past the next hill — and is it worth the drive?
Pack the car. Grab your favorite toy. The road — and the snakes — are waiting.

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