A storm is brewing in the all-but-forgotten backcountry of Kentucky. And, for young Orbie Ray, the swirling heavens may just have the power to tear open his family’s darkest secrets. Then Like The Blind Man: Orbie’s Story is the enthralling debut novel by Freddie Owens, which tells the story of a spirited wunderkind in the segregated South of the 1950s, and the forces he must overcome to restore order in his world.

Nine-year-old Orbie already has his cross to bear. After the death of his father, his mother Ruby has off and married his father’s coworker and friend Victor, a slick-talking man with a snake tattoo. Orbie hates his stepfather more than he can stand, a fact that lands him at his grandparent's place in Harlan's Crossroads, Kentucky. Orbie grudgingly adjusts to life with his doting Granny and carping Granpaw, who are a bit to keen on their black neighbors for Orbie's taste, not to mention their Pentecostal congregation of snake handlers. Soon, however, he finds his worldviews changing, particularly when it comes to race, religion and the true cause of his father's death.