Clay Noia

A Season of War Clay Noia

A Season of War is a literary novel set in southwestern Connecticut during World War Two. Jacky Barnes, the fourteen-year-old teenager who, with his best friend, witnesses the setting of a fire that destroys the local high school, narrates it in an enchanting voice. When their friend Tom Mack, an outcast Indian living in a chicken coop, is charged with arson, both Jacky and Butch are faced with the dilemma of saving Tom from jail by risking the retaliation of Cottonmouth, the vicious gang leader who set the fire. After Cottonmouth breaks Butch's spirit, Jacky finds himself alone, unable to confide in the older, beautiful Lacey, who is his conscience, or in Cootie, his friend who discerns the key to the menacing Cottonmouth. The events in the novel mirror the rites of passage that World War Two was for our society and is rich in details about life on the Home Front, from the Memorial Day parades that honored the dead veterans to the major events that encompassed the War which ended the time of innocence that once permeated American life. If you yearn for an America now gone, this novel will gladden and sadden your heart.