I played this for a family during a hometeaching visit, and the 12 year old boy said he couldn't understand a word of it. So we had to stop it every minute or so and explain what was happening.
He totally didn't get it and didn't care.
But I thought it was a good story. The accent doesn't strike me as strange, I've met plenty of people with southern accents about as thick as this. [you have to listen to the author read it, not actually read it yourself].
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=5028755