In the Wild Light

Sawyer, Tennessee, should be an easy place to leave, but leaving home is not easy for either Cash or Delaney. In both cases, substance use disorder has upended the normal bonds of love and support between parents and children. In addition, given the economic conditions of rural Tennessee, Cash and Delaney both know the harsh reality of barely making ends meet. In both cases, their fathers have been absent, physically and/or emotionally, and their mothers have sought an escape through drugs and casual sex. Delaney grew up estranged from a mother who never recognized her scholarly achievements or her scientific promise, and Cash is still haunted by the harrowing hours he spent alone watching over the corpse of his mother after her overdose.

Yet both have found the consolation of home in the generosity of love and empathetic understanding of family: Cash in his grandparents and Delaney in her nephews and nieces. In addition, home means much within the close-knit culture of Appalachia. Given the insular life of the hill country and the resistance, generation to generation, of abandoning the family roots in the rural Outback of Appalachia, Tennessee offers to both Delaney and Cash a sense of their identity. For Cash, his arrival in Connecticut triggers a new appreciation for his family and his home.