Pretty Black's Hole

Pretty Black's Hole is a moral fable about the impact of family history on character development. It begins in the Year of the Tadpoles, when Deakie Boy, a descendant from a long line of what he calls deformed family character—loose character folks—has just turned thirteen. He declares himself different from the workers with whom he shares a migrant labour camp in Arizona, affectionately known as the Head. This difference gains him the favour of the Six Graces and their playmate, the Petty God of Irony.

Deciding to have a bit of fun, these Supernaturals infuse the boy's difference with the power to take at will and without regard for consequences to others. The Supernaturals intend to sit back and be amused as Deakie Boy wreaks havoc on mere humans. Instead, they lose control of their heir, and, in the years following, under many assumed names, he uses that power to take advantage of those who fail to heed the importance of his difference as it is revealed as a frog's eye in a smiling human face. Many decades and horrors pass as the Supernaturals seek to regain control of their heir.

In the same year, in the middle of a cotton field, a sixteen-year-old girl known as Pretty Black discovers a hole left over from an agricultural project. To this hole, six feet around with walls held in place by a tin cylinder, Pretty adds a tin-sheet roof, creating her home away from the crowded camp. Expecting to enjoy this privacy, Pretty soon collides with Deakie Boy's difference. Like mangy dogs hunting scraps, men prowl, inspiring Deakie Boy and his sidekick, Bubba Joe, to find a hideous use for Pretty's home. The violence of that night in the Year of the Tadpoles connects across generations of entangled family histories to reveal moral consequences the Supernaturals did not anticipate.

In the following years, with each assumed name and the character defamations these represent, Deakie Boy's power becomes a looming threat to the futures of three young couples: Jean Elizabeth and Robert Reed, Altagracia and Joseph Lincoln, and Carrie Anne and William Ellis Porter. Led by Jean Elizabeth, they work together—sometimes honestly, but more often lying through their teeth—to learn how to prevent the Supernaturals' gift to Deakie Boy from destroying their futures.

To succeed, they must understand why frogs, much adored by Jean Elizabeth, represent the Supernaturals' purposes and determine whether the vile scent following Jean Elizabeth is merely the smell of the elderly man stalking her or an indicator of the power of a non-human creature. Struggling to grasp the connection between the Supernaturals' game and the making of moral character in family histories, the couples' investigation repeatedly unearths relatives that some of them would prefer to rebury. They fear that the knowledge they gain is digging a hole within which their futures will reproduce only the worst characters in their family histories.

Making their task more difficult, they engage a private investigator—as crooked as a dog's hind leg—and seek assistance from friends who seldom deserve the label.