The Past Ever Present

The road to maturity is full of chuckholes and chuckles for child actor Clay Jeter and his grandfather. Clay played Creed Allen from Catherine Marshall's Christy on tv. Remembering his own youth, Clay's guardian and grandfather, Clifton, narrates adventures from the Depression-era South where he grew up. The book contains two settings and time periods: a modern-day television series production set in a poor farm community in the mountains of eastern Tennessee, eerily similar to the one where Clifton once lived in western Kentucky. Being on the set of the show provides a dramatic transformation for both, as Clay comes of age and Clifton comes to terms with his past. The book was a USA Book News, Best Books Award Finalist.