With heart and humour, Tales from the Bayou City chronicles fifteen years in the life of Houston, Texas, as the city negotiates volatile changes in economic health, race relations, immigration laws, and neighbourhood viability.

George Palmer, a freelance folklorist, and a keen traveller of Houston’s broken byways, gathers stories few ever hear among backstreets few choose to wander. He shoulders the burdens borne by “Mama Houston’s” children and struggles to redefine “family” in a culture determined, it seems, to tear communities apart.