Hangin' Tree (formerly Natchetochez) by
Preparing to share Easter dinner, the Turpin family discusses the day’s mass shooting at a nearby school in Natchetochez. Fred, the patriarch, wonders why the news has to go on and on about how it’s a white guy, and for that matter why they have to go on and on about white guys in general because what does that have to do with it? Quentin, whose head has been filled with Yankee nonsense in the big city and has...
Preparing to share Easter dinner, the Turpin family discusses the day’s mass shooting at a nearby school in Natchetochez. Fred, the patriarch, wonders why the news has to go on and on about how it’s a white guy, and for that matter why they have to go on and on about white guys in general because what does that have to do with it? Quentin, whose head has been filled with Yankee nonsense in the big city and has a wife who apparently wants to convert him to Catholicism even though she’s not Catholic, freaks out over minor things like his sister Candace whipping a pistol out of her purse. Maxine, the matriarch, would prefer to keep the topics of conversation on the lighter side, but when you have a huge live oak on your property affectionately known as the Hangin’ Tree, it tends to cast a shadow.
Absent is the youngest sibling, Bailey, who is either napping or hanging out with his weird friend who’s named Pete, or Howard, or something like that but definitely not Henry and who probably had a bad childhood. After it becomes clear that Bailey is caught up in the momentous events in town, tragedy strikes, and the family is confronted with questions of how well they know themselves and each other, what it means to be “one of us,” and how to handle history that we’d like to forget.
Absent is the youngest sibling, Bailey, who is either napping or hanging out with his weird friend who’s named Pete, or Howard, or something like that but definitely not Henry and who probably had a bad childhood. After it becomes clear that Bailey is caught up in the momentous events in town, tragedy strikes, and the family is confronted with questions of how well they know themselves and each other, what it means to be “one of us,” and how to handle history that we’d like to forget.