"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 FedEx 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. Speck arrived in Rick's life at a moment of looing uncertainty, as he started down a litany of physical ailments straight from the Old Testament, and a creeping sadness from deaths in his great family. Speck helped, and he is helping, still, when he is not peeing on the rose of Sharon. Written with Rick Braggs' 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." --back cover