"Every time I learn this, the truer it gets: We can only live our lives looking ahead, and we can only understand them looking back."

So says Buddy Hinton, the protagonist of Kee Sloan's mesmerizing debut novel.

Growing up in rural Mississippi just a couple of miles from the Mississippi River, eight-year-old Buddy spends his summers playing in the woods behind his neighborhood. The day Buddy spots a wounded deer in those woods, he is wholly unprepared for a chance meeting with a stranger who will shape the course of his life.

Jake-fisherman, ex-convict, former tent preacher-and Buddy form an unlikely bond that transcends age and race. Forged by their many conversations about life and faith, their friendship endures sorrows, celebrations, and transitions, ultimately revealing the power to heal them both.

The Rt. Rev. John McKee Sloan is Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama. Kee graduated from Mississippi State University before going to seminary at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. He was ordained priest in 1982 and bishop suffragan in 2008. He became the diocesan bishop in 2012. Kee grew up in Vicksburg, Mississippi; his wife, Tina, grew up in Leland in the Mississippi Delta. They now live in Birmingham, Alabama, and have two children, McKee and Mary Nell.

Praise for Jabbok

"I love this book. I am a writer and I am supposed to be able to say something elegant and impressive about a book, not something so cliched as, 'I love this book.' . . . I just know I want to read Jabbok one more time, which is what I knew the last time I finished reading it. I love this book." -Phyllis Tickle, Author of The Divine Hours and The Great Emergence