”Georgia Bottoms” by Mark Childress (Little, Brown, 288 pgs., $24.99)

This is Mark Childress’ seventh novel, and it’s a doozy. It is set, like his others (“Crazy in Alabama,” “One Mississippi”) in the South, and the simple act of reading “Georgia Bottoms” releases tension; buttons are undone, shoes kicked off — man, is it hot.

Georgia Bottoms is not perfect, but she is fun to be with: “That was one secret to Georgia’s cheerfulness: she thought about the things she wanted to think about, and blotted out everything else. Another secret: she was the exception to most rules.” Georgia earns her living by diversifying her assets: Six days a week (with one of rest), she entertains a different upstanding member of the community. Six Points, Ala., would be much less exciting without this Baptist belle.

When the married preacher decides to confess his Saturday assignations to the congregation, Georgia drowns him out by fainting in the aisle. To add to her income, Georgia sells quilts made by a settlement of black women on the Catfish River, some of them “the granddaughters of actual slaves.” Georgia rationalizes doubling the price she paid for them: Marketing, she thinks, is the oldest profession. “You had to avert your eyes, fight off the image, and keep going,” she thinks after an elderly visitor is caught drooling. But her heart is large. “Each man thought he was the only man. Each thought the whole idea was his idea, his gift the only gift. That was the secret to making a living, the Georgia way.”