The Year the Lights Came on

by Terry Kay, William J. Scheick (Afterword)

First published in 1976, The Year the Lights Came On was Terry Kay's debut novel. Revolving around the electrification of rural northeast Georgia shortly after the end of World War II, the novel has become a classic coming-of-age story. Kay, now an acclaimed writer with an international following, has reread the novel with the eyes of a seasoned storyteller. Cutting here and adding there, Kay has enriched an already highly comical and poignant work. The Year the Lights Came On is ready to find its place in the hearts of a new generation.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Novels, Book Club, Contemporary, Young Adult

300 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

TERRY KAY, a 2006 inductee into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, is the author of The Book of Marie, recently released by Mercer University Press. Kay has been a sports writer and film/theater reviewer (Atlanta Journal-Constitution), a public relations executive, and a corporate officer. He is the author of nine other published novels, including To Dance with the White Dog, The Valley of Light, Taking Lottie Home, The Kidnapping of Aaron Greene, Shadow Song, The Runaway, Dark Thirty, After Eli, and The Year the Lights Came On, as well as a book of essays (Special K) and a childrens book (To Whom the Angel Spoke)."

Reviews

[booklady · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Year the Lights Came On by Terry Kay is worth checking out if you are on the lookout for a middle school novel which deals with community conflict resolution, racial relations, budding romances and learning about real friendship, with special focus on young males immediately following World War II. It has the added benefit of being based on the author’s life, thus presenting history from a lived perspective as opposed to something created by a writer today. It was originally published in 1976 and was the author’s first book*, but also his favorite.

I told my husband he would love it and I’m saving it for my grandson.

Highly recommended!

*In this edition, he updated it slightly for style.

[Marge Rudman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh! How I love a Southern tale well-told! Terry Kaye's language is always beautiful and poetic. Never overblown. There are lessons of morality without the preaching and characters I wish I knew personally. Some boys grow up another bit. Some do not. The arrival of electricity changes lives forever. As with most change, there are trade-offs and something is lost. This is a beautiful story.

[Jeff Garrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terry Kay, The Year the Lights Came On (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1976). 300 pages




It's 1947. The war is over; across rural America, the Rural Electric Administration (REA) is stringing electrical lines, uniting the nation together with strands of copper that bring light and time saving appliances to all America. Colin Wynn is a ten year old. He's excited about the coming of the electricity. The Year the Lights Came On is his story of coming of age.




In the town of Emery, Colin is one of the "have nots." In the late 40s, the haves and have nots are divided by electricity. Colin and his family live in the country and unlike the city folk and those who live on the highway, they don't have electricity. This means that their homes are not used for church social gatherings or Cub Scout meetings. In school, the town kids and the rural kids form into two gangs. They're constantly at each other's throats. The rural boys all take the "Big Gully Oath," which seals them against the kids who live along the highway and in town. When it is discovered that Colin and Megan (who lives along the highway and has electricity in her home) have a thing for each other, Colin is booted from the club for a week. Kay does a great job expressing the horror of a ten year old boy being exposed as having a girlfriend.



There are two strong characters in the book. Colin's brother Wesley is a few years older and often has the wisdom of Solomon. Wesley, who later becomes a Methodist minister, provides the moral conscience in the book. The other character is a poor kid named Freeman. Much of the book centers on Freeman's escape from the Sheriff after he's been framed for stealing twenty dollars from his employer. Freeman (his name gives us insight to his character) spends days hiding in the swamp. The plot of the book centers on the futile attempts by the sheriff and his deputies to apprehend him. One funny story is how Freeman's friends, including Wesley and Colin, take Freeman's clothes down into the swamp and make circles with them, confusing the bloodhounds who just about run themselves to death as they pick up the boy's scent everywhere. In the end, Freeman is not captured, but comes out of the swamp seeking medical attention for a knife cut. It later turns out that he hadn't stolen the money.



Freeman's run from the law allows Kay and opportunity to explore the racial relations within the community. Freeman finds help from several black families who live near the swamp. When Wesley and Colin discover this, Wesley makes Coin swear an oath that they'll tell no one out of a fear that if it is discovered that these families helped Freeman, it could mean trouble for them. In one encounter, Baptist (a local black man) sits Wesley and Colin down and teaches them about the "meanness" in people, upsetting Colin's youthful trust in the "goodness" of folks.



Kay is a wonderful storyteller and in several chapters, which seem to divert from the main focus of the book, the reader is treated to wonderful down home tales. Two chapters are pure classic, the one that tells about the Dare-Devil's flying show and the one about Preacher Bytheway's Speaking in Tongues Traveling Tent Tabernacle. Bytheway, a former fertilizer salesman, buys a tent from a defunct circus. Folks flock to his revival: some are drawn by religion and others like Freeman come for the show. Under the hot canvas, the crowd tries to keep cool with fans provided by a local funeral home with the imprint, "Give you life to Jesus, trust your remains to us." Preacher Bytheway "started on a fox hunt of scripture until he treed the passage about Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey and that became his topic." (I'll forgive Mr. Kay for mixing his metaphors here. Although I never hunted foxes, I can't imagine treeing one. Raccoons, or coons as they're called down South, are treed.) As the good preacher continues with his sermon, "it was like he'd been jolted with a charge from an Atlas car battery." During the week of revival, Bytheway convicts Loran, a man known for his limited intelligence. Bytheway baptizes, and then ordains him. Loran later comes to believe that he's sent by God to save animals and sets out to baptize the entire animal kingdom, creating numerous humorous situations.



I really enjoyed this book and several times found myself laughing so hard that I had to put the book down and catch my breath. However, as a whole, the book seems to have too many threads and subplots that you almost forget about the coming of the REA till at the end, when all of a sudden the wires are connected to Colin's house and his mother's prediction comes true. With the electric lights, things are different. The family no longer gathers around a few kerosene lamps at night. With the coming of the lights, there are things they'll give up. Family closeness is one of them.



This is Terry Kay's first novel, published over thirty years ago.

[Peaches · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m really glad this one is over. I’m attending an NEH program this summer on Appalachian lit and this is a required reading, unfortunately. Hopefully, the other texts will be more engaging, as I expect more cultural heritage, naturalism, and possibly magical realism in Appalachian lit. This book is reminiscent of To Kill a Mockingbird for me, which isn’t a good thing. As a modern reader, I can’t relate to the “childhood innocence” of naivety and not understanding the world effectively (after all, the internet and TV existed for me as a kid…). The trial scene seemed like a direct parallel only with geographical prejudice instead of racism (and on a smaller scale, as a kid is accused of stealing and hides in the swamp). I did like the kids more than the obnoxious Scout, Jem, and Dill, who act way too young for their ages in a modern text, but the boys are just symbols of boyhood without any developed emotions. Colin (and I can’t stand how his name is pronounced, like colon…) tells of his brother dying and provides no emotional description. Granted, as a stereotypical boy and child, he might not understand his emotions, but he is supposed to be an adult narrator looking back on his childhood, which should have more analysis.

I would hate teaching this book for the lack of relatability; however, it could lend itself to literary criticism lenses well. For feminist, it’s obvious that the women all are viewed through Colin’s gaze of womanhood, including being fair-haired, bright eyed, soft, compassionate, and nurturing. Megan is the only one who stands up to Colin at all and promotes change, but then he dumps her and almost ruins her wedding by visiting her, giving her poetry, and kissing her. What a great way to appreciate her, dude. For Marxist, the status in the town is definitely outlined by Colin, from geography to electricity. For naturalism, the loss of interaction in the wild due to technology is overt as well; however, how much is there to say about anything when it’s that obvious and everything is outlined in the “Epilogue” and “Afterward”?

My favorite character was Freeman, who survives in the swamp, doesn’t take people’s crap, and stays true to his roots; however, I didn’t like how Colin doesn’t even remember what happened to him. This book is depressing in a way. Things change and there’s no explanation as to why; it’s just “progress” and you can grow or go live in the swamp.

This book just wasn’t written for someone like me. I don’t like male perspectives usually, and extremely childish ones make it even worse. My generation can’t relate to these types of kids, and everything is just too obvious to an educated adult reader.

[Jean Labrador · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having spent a few of my younger years in rural Georgia, this wonderful book brought back many memories. It gets the flavor of young boyhood in the South just right. In fact, the entire book hits just the right notes to bring a full symphony into play during a warm southern night with stars shining in the sky. It is a must read to add to Kay's Dance with a White Dog. Nothing he writes is out of tune.

[Linda W. Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Retreat to a Better Place

This is a welcome return to innocence and dreams. It is a time that predates technology which seems to have consumed today's generation. The characters are you and your family members and friends before the realization of responsibility and accountability. Terry Kay's story of the breakup of one's own first love mirrors my own. I hated to be finished with this beautiful story.

[Chet Ford · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great reminder of better times.

The stories shared in this book are so familiar to me. Terry is the brother of my Uncle Gary, and while the stories are fiction there is enough truth that they make me smile. I grew up hearing my father tell similar tales of childhood friendships, battles, and loves. His stories of growing up in the south without electricity and the wonderment of when it arrived. This is my new favorite book!

[Cynthia Byrne · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good coming of age story amid the post WW2, era when many rural areas got electricity. Tale is told by an excitable but lovable Colin, the youngest of a group of fellows whose families don’t have electricity at the beginning of the book and feel they are discriminated against by those on the other side of the highway whose families do have it and the conveniences that go with the power.

[paige · Rating 3 out of 5]

As my friend previewed for me, total Sandlot vibes. I didn't love the writing or the story (both felt flat/underdeveloped) but appreciated the great moments of adolescent friendship that unfolded. A lovely tribute to landscape.

[Lori Inouye · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very entertaining... language was almost poetic at times but readable. Since I grew up in Ga I found it very interesting.

[Cheryl S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enjoyable read. Reminds me a little of "The Outsiders" and "To Kill a Mockingbird".

[Rona Simmons]

The Year the Lights Came On, Terry Kay's debut novel. Reading Kay’s coming of age story was like devouring a favorite childhood candy bar, perhaps a Three Musketeers like the one Megan Priest gifts to Colin Wynn, the protagonist. There’s anticipation, delight, and a lingering familiarity to savor wrapped together in Terry Kay’s unmistakable rhythmic prose. Here it is applied to Colin’s two brothers (stand ins, I imagine, for two of Kay’s own beloved siblings). Thomas who “had a smile and a laugh and eyes with This Morning’s Sun burning blue. He knew how to say hello and make the exuberance of that hello surround you and follow you everywhere you traveled that day.” And Wesley of whom he writes: “It was the first time I realized Wesley’s embrace, and in that moment I saw him suddenly go limp, as though something had gone out of him, something the rest of us did not have.”
The story is of boys growing up and leaving the constraints of their youth and all they thought meant more to them than anything; putting aside what they expected to last forever. But while some of those constraints or boundaries are physical—like those that define Colin’s community—they are also emotional. And to me, no better described in the way Colin relates to these exquisitely drawn portraits.
Recommended. “Yeah.” “Spit.”

[Sheila · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some books are worth rereading after a longtime. This was 50 years for me, and I found that I remembered very little of it. The story takes place in 1947, and narrated by a twelve year old boy, Colin. He lives a farm just out of a small town. The town has electricity, they do not, and this is the basis, he thinks, of animosity shown to his friends, by their rivals. Yes, it is a coming age story of their community as well as themselves. Kay includes folk beliefs, a bit of adventure, a lot of dreams, and the reality of what life is like when power comes to their homes. Very highly recommended, even if it is a slow starter.

[Grace Arthur · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terry Kay will always be at the top of my list of loved authors. He writes with dignity, eloquence and honesty about a time that is gone and brings you back so closely you can hears the sounds, smell the smells and know you’re home.

[David]

recommended by Karen Herring's sister Lara Silaghi

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

The REA destroyed something...some intangible security people always enjoyed in isolation. I admit to having that feeling of security in isolation now, after over one year of it during our pandemic.

[Signe Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

well I finished it. it is not a fave, it came highly recommended but i found it a chore to read, not one I will ever revisit.

[Beverly B. Bright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read.

This was my first book by Terry Kay. However, it will not be my last.
The story is true to life...you will enjoy it.

[Emma Wasserman · Rating 1 out of 5]

kill me

[Margaret Elder · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a coming of age novel, and it is a good read, but it lacks the depth of To Dance With the White Dog, another novel by this author. The relationship of a group of boys in a rural county is strained because one group has electricity, and it is felt that the boys with electricity look down on the boys without it. As the Rural Electrification Authority begins to move in, one boy is falsely accused of stealing by another, and the disappearance of the one who had been framed causes the entire community to be alarmed and to search for him. In the end, only this boy does not get electricity but keeps to his earlier ways of communing with nature. The new group with electricity becomes just like the group they had earlier perceived as enemies.
I was drawn to this author because I liked another of his works so much, and I was interested in the topic because I had heard my mother often speak of the thrill of first getting electricity in her rural area.

[Ladie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to look far and wide to find more Terry Kay novels, and I'm so glad I did. This is his first novel and the second I've read. It is very different from To Dance with the White Dog which I read first, but it is also a touching look into human relationships and how they are affected by time and place and the protagonist's age and circumstances. I enjoyed this retrospective look at rural Southern life from a boy's perspective. I look forward to reading many more of Kay's novels now that I have found them on openlibrary.org.

[Amy Bradley · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was extra credit summer reading and I have never read a Terry Kay book so ... It is set in rural Georgia in 1947 an involves electricity coming to the town. I can identify with the setting and the characters who are teenagers during the book. My father was about the age of the boys and lived in rural Georgia. The jacket describes it as a coming of age story.

[Jacqueline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best novel about junior high school age kids I ever read, sort of like Tom Sawyer and his gang get electrified. Wonderful book.

The book club with all the men in it loved it. Lots of conversation about when their families got electricity, and how they all managed before that time. The book club with all the women in it not so much.

[Kitty Tomlinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moving coming-of-age novel that tells of Colin Wynn and his brother Wesley growing up in rural Georgia in 1947. Electricity is geing put in by the Rural Electrification Administration and it narrows the lines between the haves and have-nots. Good story.

[David Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Year the Lights Came On by Terry Kay (Brown Thrasher Books 1976) is a coming of age memoir set as fiction in rural Georgia in the 1940's. He reads like a distant (and less talented) cousin to Ferrol Sams. My rating: 6/10, finished 1978.

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great book; interesting storyline; easy to read and very engaging. Terry Kay has a writing style that drew me in. I love his descriptive style. It was easy to identify with. This is the second book that I have read by him and I like him ore each time that I read one.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a treat to read such a well written and wholesome book. I enjoyed every page and when I came to the last it was like saying goodbye to a group of friends. It was beautifully written - descriptive and pure.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Have always enjoyed books by Terry Kay and this one is kind of an autobiography/novel? A story of the have electricity and those that don't and young kids growing up in the middle of it all. Good read.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a wonderful novel about rural Georgia in the late 1940's. Electric lights changed a way of life but not always for the better. This would be an excellent book for teens or preteens to read. It is about 12 to 16 year olds.

[Cora · Rating 4 out of 5]

A time for remembering early 20th century life and the changes in lifestyles and recognition of the individual growth in the process.