One day, Bohicket and Ley Walpole take their little sister, Dew, out on a johnboat to pirate the waterways for beer and loose change. Dew falls overboard and appears to drown, until two men with gigantic wings swoop down and carry her body away into the sky. The news of her disappearance hits the family hard, driving the mother to fashion wings so she can fly after the men who took her daughter. The Walpole boys set off in search of their little sister and discover love and the truth behind the centuries-old tale of the Flying Men, as well as numerous other mysteries native to the South Carolina Sea Islands.

"A Curious Matter of Men with Wings is where magic comes to life in a bold story that celebrates the Gullah world of the South Carolina Sea Islands. With lyrical prose, the novel takes us into a hidden realm where life is still enchanted, and storytelling abounds."

--Sue Monk Kidd, New York Times bestselling author of The Secret Life of Bees and The Invention of Wings

"Atmospheric, penetrating, and imaginative ... with a story layered in mythology, fairy tales, and Gullah folklore, Hammes enchants. As the mystery of the Flying People unfolds, two cultures come together and show us what we can be at our very best."

--Patti Callahan Henry, New York Times bestselling author of Becoming Mrs. Lewis and The Bookshop at Water's End

"In this beautifully written debut novel, master storyteller F. Rutledge Hammes weaves an enchanting tale that's part fable, part folklore, and all magic."

--Cassandra King, author of The Sunday Wife

About F. Rutledge Hammes:

As one of eight siblings, stories of family come naturally to F. Rutledge Hammes. His grandparents moved out to the South Carolina Sea Islands early in their marriage and made friends in the Gullah community, and he grew up enamored by all the stories and folklore he was told as a child. It wasn’t until he was a junior in college that Rutledge decided to try his hand at writing fiction; a proud and pledged poet at the time, he became inspired by the minimalist style of Raymond Carver, Pat Conroy’s sense of character and place, and the hard-hitting subject matter of Dorothy Allison. He has long believed that magic is at the heart of Charleston, SC, and so magic must be at the heart of the Charleston novel. Through A Curious Matter of Men with Wings, Rutledge hopes readers will see the redemption that comes to people who keep their promises to one another and stand together regardless of ethnicity, culture and class. He earned his BA in creative writing from University of Central Florida and his MFA in fiction from Old Dominion University, has had numerous short stories, essays and poems published in various journals and magazines around the country, and is a contributing writer in several books. He is presently Director of the Creative Writing program at the Charleston County School of the Arts, the most awarded middle- and high-school writing program in the nation, and is the 2019 South Carolina Arts Commission Prose Fellow.