In a small North Carolina riverside town where past and present are mysteriously entangled, young Daniel Waterson is growing up in the towering presence of his father Ray, a decorated Vietnam veteran whose mystical powers extend far beyond those of a trained soldier. Their lives are irrevocably altered when Ray accidentally kills a local boy, plunging their community into a maelstrom of sorrow and recrimination.
As Daniel struggles to reconcile the hero he admires with the flawed man before him, he finds himself haunted not just by the weight of the accident, but by the revenant of the boy whose life was so abruptly ended. Daniel is drawn into a world where lines between living and dead blur, and secrets rise to the surface as a community’s violent past threatens to spill over into its present.
On his journey Daniel is sustained by his fierce and loving grandmother, his best friend, and most of all his mother Lee Ann, who is determined to keep him from tapping into the power and curse that courses through his father’s veins. Eventually Daniel must face the choice confronting every man: Will I follow my father’s path?
We Shall Not All Sleep is a captivating coming-of-age story woven with danger, mystery, and the bonds between father and son, husband and wife, and faithful friends. It is a haunting tale of a quest, enduring love, and the price of redemption.