Tessie's four-year-old son was attacked and killed by an alligator in the summer of 1991. A few months later, what she believes to be the same alligator appears in Tessie's backyard. Her family and friends believe Tessie is coming apart, but for Tessie, bringing the alligator inside her house is the first step in a cosmic journey to find meaning in her suffering.

For seven days, Tessie will walk the unforgiving road of memory backward through her upbringing within the grotesque underbelly of southeast Georgia, her years as the only female student at a conservative seminary, and her tragically short-lived season as a mother.

Part southern gothic, part black comedy, The Great Georgia Dirt Dragon reads like Flannery O'Conner by way of Ottessa Moshfegh-a darkly comic and heartbreaking descent into love, loss, and grief-driven madness.