From the best-selling, Pulitzer Prize winning author of All Over But the Shoutin' and The Best Cook in the World, the warm-hearted and hilarious story of how his life was transformed by his love for a poorly behaved half blind stray dog

Speck is not a good boy. He is, a terrible boy, a defiant, self-destructive, often malodorous boy, a grave robber and screen door moocher who spends his days playing chicken with the Fed Ex man, picking fights with thousand-pound livestock, and rolling in donkey manure, and his nights howling at the moon. He has been that way since the moment he appeared on the ridgeline behind Rick Bragg's house, a starved and half-dead creature, 76 pounds of wet hair and poor decisions.

Speck arrived in Rick's life at a moment of looming uncertainty. A cancer diagnosis, chemo, kidney failure, and recurring pneumonia had left him lethargic and melancholy. Speck helped, and he is helping, still, when he is not peeing on the Rose of Sharon. Written with Bragg's inimitable blend of tenderness and sorrow, humor and grit, The Speckled Beauty captures the extraordinary, sustaining devotion between two damaged creatures who need each other to heal.

RICK BRAGG is the author of eight books, including the best-selling Ava's Man and All Over but the Shoutin'. He is also a regular contributor to Garden & Gun magazine. He lives in Alabama.