The Hill — David Poyer

Set during the 1960s in a small town, The Hill swirls high school sports, young lust, and a forbidden student-teacher affair into a hurricane that ravages a community. The Hill was Poyer's first novel, written as an experiment at the very beginning of his career. It prefigured characters, settings, and the themes of ethical choice and personal quandaries he would develop though the many books that followed: the later Hemlock County novels, set in the same remote area of Pennsylvania, the widely popular Dan Lenson novels, the Tiller Galloway diving adventures, and the Civil War at Sea trilogy, along with scores of short stories and novellas. Reedited for a modern audience, yet still awkward in places, THE HILL serves as a retrospective on the genesis of a writer, along with a timeless look into the soul of a sensitive, disabled young man struggling toward adulthood and self-knowledge.