num_pages: 202
description: Samuel Jellerson, 56 and forced into early retirement, is walking in the woods behind the family farm in Maine one fall day when he witnesses a priest molesting a boy. From this one event all the action in the novel follows and draws a wide cross section of the town—a frantic mother, an idealistic teenage girl, a brooding, alienated young man, a priest, a minister, a swamp yankee, a lonely old man, a happy-go-lucky plumber, and many others— into a theme that explores the nature of evil and its antidote empathy, the force that creates community, fellow-feeling and a sense of responsibility to others.
language: English
title: On a Darkling Plain
titlecomplete: On a Darkling Plain
publisher: The Wessex Collective