Wisconsin in the 1970s. Billy is the youngest child in the Lucas family. He lives with an abusive alcoholic father, a mother who has given up on life, and an older brother who joins the army to escape. The neighbours also live on a nearby farm and are very concerned about the children and the mother. The eldest son will be killed in Vietnam, the father will die of a heart attack sitting behind his barn, and Billy will go mad, struggling with the loss of his brother and the torture inflicted by his father. It will take the care of three loving adults to rebuild the boy and help him regain his life. This is a cruel, gut-wrenching story, but at the same time, it shows the power of love and caring and has that magical, mystical edge that makes it a profound story.
“Ernie raised his head and stared at the November sky. This was the year he had begun to love autumn again. He liked the canning of fruits and vegetables and the last-minute winterizing of the house and barn. He liked the dark furrows of dirt after he plowed the fields to ready their absorption of melting snow in the spring. He loved the smell of woodsmoke from his fireplace, an ancient smell that clung to his skin and made him grateful for a warm house. He loved the stark and skeletal outline of the hardwood trees against the mottled gray skies and the intense yellowing of the tamarack needles in the swamp. He loved the increasing silence and the space it encompassed above his head, space often filled with the passing flocks of migratory birds whose voices it seemed had been with him even before he was born. He strongly believed that it was the season in which life did not die but transformed itself, flew to another part of the world, went underground, went to sleep, and in some cases throve. It was the season of the spirits and the spiritual, the season most embedded with tradition and ritual for him, the season of his father.”