Now, in his new novel, "Back to Wando Passo," Payne introduces us to Ransom Hill, lead singer of a legendary-but-now-defunct indie rock group who has come to South Carolina to turn over a new leaf.

A big-hearted artist and a bit of a wild man, Ransom knows that his wife Claire's patience with him hangs by a frayed thread. After a five-month separation, he's come south from New York City to rejoin her and their two young children at Wando Passo, Claire's inherited family estate, determined to save his marriage, his family, and himself.

In this episode of UNC-TV's local literary series North Carolina Bookwatch, Friday, Aug. 4, at 9:30 p.m., Payne shares his fast-paced adventure story filled with lyrical writing, wicked humor, unforgettable characters that are at once different and the same.

"The book involves what is really two love triangles that share certain features -- one set in present day and centered around the character Ransom Hill. The second story revolves around a Charleston debutante, 150 years earlier," says Payne. "These two plots cut back and forth between each other throughout the book, and intersect at the end."

The Henderson native reveals how "Back to Wando Passo" propels its two Southern love stories, and their interracial underpinnings, linked by place through time, to a simultaneous crescendo of betrayal, revenge, and redemption, that asks whether the present is doomed ceaselessly to repeat the past -- or if it can sometimes change and redeem it.

"I guess I was trying to work my way toward a position where we've moved past racial differences and to show at the end of the day that it is unimportantand how insignificant it is in the final analysis," says Payne.

An encore episode of the show airs Sunday, Aug. 6, at 5 p.m., on UNC-TV.

For more information about additional series guests and airdates, plus the all-new Bookwatch blog and online book club, visit www.unctv.org/ncbookwatch.

Funding for North Carolina Bookwatch is provided by UNC-TV members and by Quail Ridge Books and Music, Raleigh's independent, full service bookstore, bringing readers and writers together since 1984.

North Carolina Bookwatch is part of UNC-TV's ongoing commitment to produce programs for and about North Carolina. UNC-TV is the statewide 11-station broadcast network of the University of North Carolina.