Young Men Shall See — Scott Thompson

Sometimes peace means silence, and justice means murder. Life for Gus Ambrose in the small community of River Falls, Georgia, is a constant struggle to seek wild adventure, understand the mystery of love and escape the pervasive boredom of high school. On the surface, River Falls is a peaceful and perfect world - a mix of quaint southern charm, happiness and safety. But the scars of the past have a way of working their way to the surface and slamming headlong into the present, shattering innocence and revealing the worst humanity has to offer. Set in the 1980s, segregation in America had been legally abolished for a generation, but many still struggled with how black and white fit together and existed - integrated in word, but still segregated by old habits and underlying emotion. Young Men Shall See follows Gus and his friends as they navigate this new world, and learn the hard way that actions have consequences, and real justice can mean going against everything you once believed to be true. As the friends grapple with the ideas of love and prejudice, they each cling to their sense of right and wrong. But when one of the friends is unexpectedly killed, anger and frustration swell and push the group to take action. In the face of unimaginable corruption by the local authorities, the friends are galvanized into a force capable of rescue, grief, and even murder. This Southern Gothic coming of age story shows the ugly underbelly of evil that exists even in the most tranquil of towns and how events and raw emotion can push each of us past the point of no return.