'There are four buses that leave Mobile daily for Moss Bayou. No matter what time the trains get in from New Orleans or Birmingham, you still have to wait around half the day for one of these buses if you want to get to Moss Bayou. And a good many people do, for Moss Bayou is a lovely, easygoing resort town, located as it is where Magnolia River runs in to the bay with worlds of giant live oaks and sandy roads that wind forever under the trailing Spanish moss.' So begins Robert Bell's novel that is, most of all, about a love affair with a place --the legendary eastern shore of Mobile Bay.