The Great Big Doorstep: A Novel

A Depression-era comic masterpiece, E. P. O'Donnell's The Great Big Doorstep centers on the Crochets, a Cajun family who live in a ramshackle house between the levee and the Mississippi River. The Crochets dream of one day owning a stately plantation befitting the magnificent cypress doorstep they have salvaged from the river and proudly display outside their humble home.

The memorable characters in this novel have their own concerns: the patriarch, Commodo, is full of wild bravado as he fl...