It's the summer of 1942, and the world beyond is aflame with war, but in the smoldering heat of Springfield, Tennessee, another battle simmers. At its center stands Shirley Ragland, fifteen, brilliant, born into a place that believes girls should marry young and know their place. The late-in-life child of a hard hewn father, Jim, and mother, Ora—stern and aloof—not cruel by design, but by circumstance. Into this world comes Trixie Simpson, the glamorous widow. Trixie comes to Sunday Mass smelling of sin and Chanel, and Shirley idolizes her for it. And then there's the Ragland's domestic, Earline, the Black woman who raised Shirley with the sort of love Ora couldn't bear to offer, and Earline's son, Benjamin, whose childhood bond with Shirley treads into dangerous territory.
Bo Harris appears like first loves often do—genuine, untested, except to Ora—he's not good enough. He see's Shirley in a way that startles her, and in the South, being seen can be as perilous as being touched. Hovering over it all is Father Schadenfreud, the town's Polish priest. With storm-dark eyes and voice like velvet, he is a man both feared and revered. Dandelion Wine is a seething Southern coming-of-age novel steeped in longing and lit by the slow fire of defiance. And as the summer heat rises, Shirley must choose whether to shrink into the story written for her—or light a match and watch it burn.
