Where the Heart Is

Novalee Nation has always been unlucky with sevens. She's seventeen, seven months pregnant, thirty-seven pounds overweight - and now she finds herself stranded at a Wal-Mart in Sequoyah, Oklahoma, holding just $7.77 in change. An hour ago, she was on her way from Tennessee to a new life in Bakersfield, California. Suddenly, with all those sevens staring her in the face, she is forced to accept the scary truth: her no-good boyfriend Willy Jack Pickens has left her with empty pockets and empty dreams. But Novalee is about to discover treasures hidden in Sequoyah - a group of disparate and deeply caring people, among them blue-haired Sister Thelma Husband, who hands out advice and photocopied books of the Bible ... Moses Whitecotton, the wise, soft-spoken, elderly black photographer eager to teach Novalee all he knows ... and Forney Hull, the eccentric town librarian who hides his secrets - and his feelings - behind his world of books.

Billie Letts teaches creative writing at Southeastern Oklahoma State University.