If All Arkansas Read the Same Book is a project that was picked up by the Arkansas State Library from a program in Seattle, where a book is chosen and the author is brought to the state, and as many people as possible read the book. The first book was To Dance with the White Dog by Terry Kay. There has been a book chosen every year since. Each author is brought to Arkansas to visit libraries and discuss the book of the season.
This year, the author is Cassie Dandridge Selleck. Her book The Pecan Man is a work of Southern fiction whose first chapter was the First Place winner of the 2006 CNW/FFWA Florida State Writing Competition in the Unpublished Novel category.
In the summer of 1976, recently widowed and childless, Ora Lee Beckworth hires a homeless old black man to mow her lawn. The neighborhood children call him the Pee-can Man; their mothers call them inside whenever he appears. When the police chief’s son is found stabbed to death near his camp, the man Ora knows as Eddie is arrested and charged with murder. Twenty-five years later, Ora sets out to tell the truth about the Pecan Man. In narrating her story, Ora discovers more truth about herself than she could ever have imagined.
