Sister of Sorrows

By: Henry Ball

Synopsis

This is the story that Frankie told Lizzie: Some of the names and events in Henry Ball’s novel, Sister of

Sorrows, have been changed in order to protect the innocent…and maybe some were guilty, too.

In Southern Louisiana, in 1957, there is no more shocking news than when the homecoming queen and

erstwhile valedictorian of Walker High School has gotten pregnant. Shamed into dropping out of her senior

year, Dee Crockett has thoroughly convinced herself that she will never fulfill her dream to be the first college

educated woman in her family and a successful business woman.

The father, Jack, has already high-tailed it out of town. Church offers no sanctuary for Dee either, with the

preacher, Bible Bill Grantham, condemning her virtually by name and his wife “prophesying” aloud to the

congregation, proclaims directly at her “The wicked shall burn in the eternal fire that I have reserved for the

Devil and his offspring, and the Devil’s own daughter is in our sanctuary this night, she will burn in

damnation’s fire for her sins…” Dee runs from the church as if running for her life as a literal torrent pours

from the heavens.

Separating her from home, a flooded river (the Amite, one of the main river’s causing the extreme flooding

currently in Livingston Parish, Louisiana), a damaged bridge and her growing sense of independence helps

the seventeen-year old come to terms with giving birth and proudly raising her child, with or without the help

of Jack.

By the time her mother, Kelli-Kay, finds her, Dee is miles away putting her industriousness to work as a

chambermaid. Through her determination and resilience, Dee eventually works her way up to a bartending

position at a local hot spot as the star attraction. The Star Mist Lounge in Baton Rouge is an upscale joint

that serves the courthouse and city government crowd during the week and the college crowd during football

season. When LSU wins, the drinks flow like the mighty Mississippi, the kitchen crew can’t make enough

hush-puppies, and the tip jar is filled three or four times. If the Tigers lose, the Tiger fans drown their sorrows

and the drinks flow like the mighty Mississippi, the kitchen crew can’t make enough hush-puppies, and the

tip jar is filled three or four times.

One game night, a violent car crash leaves Dee near death, in a coma and clinging to two lives, as she is

pregnant again, this time by the son of the same preacher Grantham who condemned her at the story’s

outset. With Dee unable to even work her regular hours and care for her existing children, a nearly impossible

decision is made and the baby is placed for adoption.

This child grows up to be Lizzie, the long lost half-sister hearing the story of Sister of Sorrows from one of

Dee’s other six children, our narrator, Frankie.

Shortly after the adoption, Dee meets the gregarious and, seemingly, gentle giant, Beck, who fathers three

more children with her. Beck has seen action in Korea; he’s fired the 40MM cannon shot that brought down

an enemy aircraft which crashed into an enemy war ship and sank it; he’s literally sailed around the world

twice and eye-witnessed a nuclear explosion.

But now he’s ready for a quieter, tamer life. The older children love Beck and are happy to have him in the

family, their big hero. He is like a jungle gym they can climb on; the father figure they need while they are

the family he wants.

It isn’t long, however, before Beck falls from aspiring contractor and Big Daddy to violent, abusive, fall-down

drunk. Beck uses his connections to get himself out of numerous domestic abuse cases against Dee and

even to escape prosecution for his involvement in one of the most notorious counterfeiting rings in U.S.

History.

Billy Cannon, Louisiana legend and 1959 Heisman Trophy winner, is at the center of what starts out as a

small operation to print “really good counterfeit money” with his childhood friend, Beck. The feds keep their

distance for a few months, building their case and casting a wide net in an effort to catch every fish swimming

in Cannon’s school of want-to-be crime bosses. Eventually $150,000 in phony bills are recovered, an

accomplice is flipped, and an undercover money buy is set up, leading to the motherlode of over

$6,000,000.00 in buried counterfeit funds.

While Beck escapes arrest, Billy is forced to face the music and it has far reaching consequences for his

whole family. Ultimately Billy crawls then climbs back to respectability—decades after he had been coined a

‘Counterfeit Hero’ by Sports Illustrated, ESPN’s Outside the Lines runs a widely well received story entitled

“The Redemption of Billy Cannon.”

Beck, on the other hand, is unrepentant to the bitter end (almost), leaving Dee as the role model and sole

provider for her six children. Throughout Sister of Sorrows, Dee does what she has to do to survive and to

feed and protect her family. She has faced more injustice and hardship than any human Frankie knows but

she never quits. She teaches her brood to work, to care about each other and others in general, and to have

a positive outlook on life.

A family pushes through struggles and strife, survives years of abuse, setbacks and the loss of everything

they have. Through it all Frankie learns to stand on his own, use his father, the monster of his youth, as an

example of what not to be but he also learns to honor his parents and love his family because home is home

and despite your upbringing you can choose a better life and still be proud of where you come from.

Frankie’s journey is depicted in the coming of age sequel, Sons of Sorrow.