Terry Kay's The Year the Lights Came On

"As You Read" Assignment for Discussion

The Year the Lights Came On (1976) is Terry Kay's first novel and brings into focus a concern that most of his work grapples with to one degree or another—the complexity of human morality and the paradoxes associated with such complexity, an idea that Blake would reference as "the fearful symmetry." The novel is set within the framework of "childhood loss of innocence," and in this sense is bildungsroman or coming of age story. It has a picaresque or episodic structure and profundity of themes reminiscent of the work of Mark Twain, particularly his Huck Finn. So keep Twain in mind as you turn the pages of Terry Kay's thought-provoking novel. Also, as you read, keep in mind 1) the author's use of time, 2) his emphasis on cultural and social change and how these affect our attitudes both positively and negatively, and 3) his exploration of the nature of truth and prejudice. Note how Kay interweaves these ideas into his story to create a novel that transcends both time and place, as well as the local color inherent in Appalachian and southern literature.

As you read, think about the following questions:

1. The book begins with an oath of friendship at Big Gully among those Emery Junior High kids who live south of Banner's Crossing, the "sorriest dirt road in Eden County" (4). The kids—Wesley, Lynn, and Colin Wynn, Freeman Boyd, and the rest of their somewhat motley "Our Side" crew—are opposed, as it were, by the hoity-toity, well-to-do "Hwy. 17 Gang." It is clear from the opening pages of the book that this is a time of extraordinary change and transition. It's 1947, and the second great War is over. The young men have returned from a world at war, the young women who have taken their place in the factories have experienced some of the world beyond the kitchen sink and back-door garden; the American cultural and social landscape, particularly in the South, is poised for extraordinary change or what Kay calls "giving way" (Special Kay, the Wisdom of Terry Kay 203). Note the references to "time" in the book that suggest this transition. While the "Our Side" children continue to define themselves in terms of their family and neighborhood loyalties, their world of definitive boundaries is already destined to vanish. What are the references to "boundaries" and "divisions" that you find in the book, and which characters are associated with these? Many of these boundaries have to do with places, but some reference the "haves and have nots" of the Emery—those designated either as the elite or as "other." Explain. What does the imagination, as Wesley suggests, have to do with boundaries?

2. What is the significance of the R.E.A.'s bringing electricity to these rural mountain kids? How will their lives be better, aside from the obvious conveniences provided by electricity? How will their lives be lessened? What does Colin, the narrator, mean when he suggests their habit of "clustering" was forever lost after the "lights came on" (24)? New England Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson associates the idea of "compensation" with invention and progress and the paradoxical downside that also comes with such advancement; how does his idea relate to Kay's The Year the Lights Came On (see Epilogue 285)?

3. The novel has an apparently loose narrative structure, one which seems a series of vignettes about growing up in the Appalachian foothills, and yet there is a remarkable coherence and unity to the book, particularly as it explores the moral and philosophic issues that Kay presents. What is the point of the following vignettes, and how do they reveal the real life complexity of day-to-day morality in this postlapsarian (fallen) world in which we live?

a) Shirley and Walter Weems and the Fight: Why don't the kids, particularly those who live on the "right side" of Hwy. 17, like Shirley and Walter? What is the "punishment" that Principal Wade Simmons exacts on Our Side for starting the fight? How does Mr. Simmons really feel about Our Side? How does the fight both "clear the air" and reveal the paradox or dichotomy of the "lights coming on"? What does Wesley mean when he says, "Truth is, there ain't one dab of real difference between us. It's what you think, and what I think, that makes us different" (52). What does Colin suggest toward the end of his narration, when he alludes to Wesley's "truth" about the real differences between folks and the nature of prejudice (262)?

b) Alvin Bond and the Amazing Curve Ball: How is Alvin different from the other kids? How does Our Side get Alvin to devote his energy and talent to the local baseball team? What does his habit of walking "backward" signify? What does Kay suggest at the end of the book about this unusual habit, signifying its importance as a symbol (288)?

c) Dupree Dixon's Treachery and Freeman Boyd's Ordeal in Blackpool Swamp: How does Dupree "frame" Freeman and get him fired from his father's store? Why does he do this? Why does Freeman go to Blackpool Swamp rather than run away somewhere else or leave the county? Eventually, the "search and arrest" becomes a "search and rescue" situation; explain. What does the community do to help Freeman in his dilemma with the law? Another Terry Kay book, Dark Thirty, suggests his lack of faith in the judicial system. Kay makes a distinction between "the True Truth and the Truth of Distortion" (274); what does he mean by the "Truth of Distortion"?

4) Terry Kay has said that he wrote this book at a time when he was feeling particularly nostalgic for the innocent of his own lost youth. How does Dover Heller function as a benign "Peter Pan" for the Our Side gang? What are Dover's talents? What are his limitations? Think about Wordsworth's famous lines from his "Intimations" Ode where he references the "splendor in the grass and glory in the flower" of childhood. What is Terry Kay suggesting about holding on to the past and childhood innocence? Note Colin's defense of Dover on page 274 and his comments about Dover's understanding of the "Truth of Distortion." What similarities does "the artist" or the writer have with characters like Dover, Bartholomew Bytheway, and Granny Woman Jordan; what traits do all these individuals share?

5) Characterize the relationship between Freeman and Willie Lee? How does Willie Lee surprise Wesley and Colin when they arrive unexpectedly at his home to elicit his help in finding Freeman (chapter 13)? What are the larger ramifications of Baptist's assertion to the boys: "But there's one thing you ain't learned about, and that's people's mean. . . People are me-e-e-e-ean, boys? . . . Freeman knows about meanness" (210).

6) How is this touching tale of growing up in southern Appalachia a "microcosm" in its portrayal of this singular and vivid time in 1947? How does the story connect with the horrific events of World War II and the genocide that was yet to come in the world (and is still ahead)? What is paradoxical about the ≥enlightenment≤—both the literal and figurative enlightenment—that comes to Colin, the narrator, during this eventful year the lights came on in Georgia?