Overview

Power in the hills moves differently. It does not announce itself. It waits. It watches. It chooses. When Ben is asked as a teenager to stand as godfather to his cousin's unborn child, he does not yet understand what that title will demand. Through the years - from reckless youth to college awakenings, from grief in hospital hallways to quiet alliances with lawmen and soldiers - he learns that authority is not taken in a single act. It is accumulated, guarded, and passed on. Hillbilly Godfather is a generational Southern novella about loyalty, ambition, corruption and succession. It explores how families build power in places overlooked by the world - and how that power survives beyond the men and women who first wield it. In the end, legacy is not about who shouts the loudest. It belongs to the one who endures. Featuring ten original illustrations, the book brings key moments of the story vividly to life. From award-winning author Van Hawkins, Hillbilly Godfather is a powerful tale of family, loyalty and inheritance in the American South.

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9780986399299

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Van Hawkins was raised in a farming family in the Missouri Bootheel, where land, work, and story were inseparable. He holds a bachelor's degree in literature from the University of Missouri, along with master's degrees in pastoral counseling from Loyola University in New Orleans and heritage studies from Arkansas State University. In 2025, he received the American Legacy Book Award in the category of Anthologies-Non-Fiction for Cries from the Walls: Hell in Arkansas Prisons, a collection of rare firsthand accounts and historical documents examining early constitutional challenges within Arkansas prisons. He was also a finalist in General History, Military History, and Southern History. His work reflects a sustained interest in power, justice, heritage, and the enduring structures that shape Southern life - themes that resonate deeply in Hillbilly Godfather.

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