The novel begins when a stranger comes to town...Noah Locke, a gifted
fisherman, has wandered up from Georgia, doing odd jobs and fishing.
Noah had been with the Forty-second Infantry when they liberated Dachau
and images of what he saw there still haunt his dreams. The friendly
residents of Bowerstown, N.C. take an interest in the mysterious young
man and encourage him to stay at least until the annual fishing contest.
Littleberry Davis, the six-time champion has become too arrogant and the
townsfolk would like to see him taken down a peg. Noah agrees to stay
and is given a room by a young widow whose soldier husband killed
himself shortly after returning home from the war. Over the course of
the next week, Noah will be let into the secret lives of the town's
residents and join with them as they mourn a tragedy. The novel ends
with a miracle that surprises everyone except Noah...and will be the
sign he needed to find his way home at last. Beautifully capturing the
rhythms and personalities of small town life, Terry Kay's novel is a
tender celebration of the special gifts inside each of us. The
simplicity of Kay's prose belies the mythic nature of his story.
Luminous, memorable, and deeply moving, The Valley of Light is Kay's
finest work to date.
