Welcome to Grand Prairie, Louisiana-land of confounding accents, hard-drinking senior citizens, and charming sinners-brought to hilarious life in a bracing, heartfelt debut novel simmering with Cajun spice . . . Father Steve Sibille has come home to the bayou to take charge of St. Pete's church. Among his challenges are teenybopper altar girls, insomnia-curing confessions, and alarmingly alluring congregant Vicky Carrier. Then there's Miss Rita, an irrepressible centenarian with a taste for whiskey, cracklins, and sticking her nose in other people's business. When an outsider threatens to poach Father Steve's flock, Miss Rita suggests he fight back by staging an event that will keep St. Pete's parishioners loyal forever. As The First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival draws near, help comes from the strangest places. And while the road to the festival may be paved with good intentions-not to mention bake sales, an elephant, and the most bizarre cook-out ever-where it will lead is anyone's guess . . .
Ken Wheaton was born in Opelousas, Louisiana, in 1973. Raised Catholic and Cajun, Wheaton aspired to one day be a Navy pilot but was sideline by bad eyesight and poor math skills. He graduated from Opelousas Catholic School in 1991 and went off to Southampton College-Long Island University in Southampton, New York, intending to study Marine Biology. An excess of drinking and (again) a dearth of math skills, led him to become an English major. From there he returned to Louisiana, where he received an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Southwestern Louisiana (now University of Louisiana-Lafayette).
Now the managing editor of trade publication Advertising Age, Wheaton lives in Brooklyn, New York. The First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival is his first published novel.
