A poignant memoir of a life on the wrong side of the tracks, with a colorful cast of misfits, plenty of belly laughs, and lessons for finding joy in spite of hardship

Move over, Sweet Potato Queens. Thanks to Lauretta Hannon the Cracker Queens are finally having their say. From her wildly popular NPR segments to her colorful one woman show Hannon is showing the world a different kind of girl raised in the South - a strong, authentic, fearless, flawed, resourceful and outrageous woman -the anti-Southern Belle.

Marking the debut of a powerfully original Southern voice, The Cracker Queen begins with the childhood experiences and adventures of Lauretta in backwater Warner Robins. Her mama on the edge and jazz musician daddy have a deep and disorderly love with years of booze, infidelities and nervous breakdowns but through it all she feels cherished. The stories of her deeply dysfunctional family include chain gangs, guns, ghost hunting, moonshine stands, scooterpootin', the famous Goat Man of Georgia and Crazy Aunt Carrie who is arrested for assaulting a police dog. The early years of hardship and hard living all gave Hannon the resilience and humor that are now the hallmarks of her Cracker Queen way of life.

From Warner Robins she moves to Savannah's most eccentric neighborhoods and its lively crew of hellions, heroines, bad seeds, thugs and renegades including a lady who keeps the Baby Jesus chained up in her front yard, a woman who looks like a rutabaga, and the root doctor that works a hoodoo on her.

Full of warmth, outrageous wit, and world-class storytelling, The Cracker Queen is, at its core, about finding meaning in painful, desperate situations and discovering the joys that can sprout from such ragged terrain. A celebration of living out loud and loving life to death, The Cracker Queen shows that the greatest humanity, the loudest cackles and the best stories can come from where you might least expect them.