A Tumultuous and Remarkable Journey Through Life, Love, and Lost in the Wilds of Southern Louisiana

When Frank Hayden learns he has a long-lost sister, doors open to the past and a slew of buried memories in the swamplands of Southern Louisiana. The story contains shocking details of a child conceived by a renowned clergy member and released to secret adoption, Byzantine laws of sexist property possession, flash floods of urgent proportions, monumental counterfeiting schemes, and a college football tailback nearly as famous as God. Some of the names and events in Henry Ball’s novel, Sister of Sorrows, have been changed to protect the innocent, and maybe some were guilty, too.

Sister of Sorrows also tells the untold story of America’s most notorious counterfeiting scheme. In 1983, the FBI arrested Louisiana’s greatest hero, Billy Cannon. While Frank’s dad, Beck Hayden, a co-conspirator in the scheme escapes arrest, Billy is forced to face the music and it has far-reaching consequences for his whole family. Ultimately Billy crawls then climbs back to respectability - decades after he had been coined a “Counterfeit Hero“ by Sports Illustrated, Louisiana celebrates “The Redemption of Billy Cannon” (ESPN - Outside the Lines).