Ashton, Mississippi, provides the deceptively sterile, conforming, and blindly respectable background in The Welcome, a novel written by Hubert Creekmore in 1948. After moving to New York following Jim's wedding, Don returns home, routed by the Depression of the 1930s. He finds Jim stuck in an unhappy marriage, and Don's arrival intensifies Jim's misery. As Jim sinks into alcoholism, Don connects with a new love interest, and their mutual friends...