Edwardian Florida. The swamplands of Tampa provide a tough but good living for those men hardy enough to brave the weather and the wildness. There are ripe pickings to be had in bird hunting; egret feathers plucked by the sack-full and sent away to adorn rich city-women’s hats. Wives for these rough hunters are ordered from catalogues, attractiveness graded by cooking skills and hip-width. When illness sweeps the area and the local minister dies, his widow, his beloved Rose, succumbs to madness. His daughter Joy must struggle to keep them both alive in what has become a skeleton town, rotting into the swamp and abandoned by all but the most ruthless. Rich with visceral imagery, The Hungry and the Lost is a novel in true Southern Gothic style, pitting the worlds of myth and innocence against the rational grip of progress and modernity.