The Light in the Forest

Conrad Richter

Apr 2009 · RB Media · Narrated by Joel Fabiani

About this audiobook

"True Son's heart felt like a stone. How could this fantastic and inferior figure in a long fawn-colored garment like a woman's be possibly anything to him-this pallid creature who revealed his feelings in front of all! In the boy's mind came the picture of his Indian father. How differently he would have looked and acted. With what dignity and restraint he could conduct himself in any situation, in peace or war, in council or the hunt, with pipe or tomahawk, rifle or scalping knife. This weak and pale-skinned man was nothing beside him 'He's not my father,' he said."-from The Light in the Forest. Johnny Butler was just four years old when his Lenni Lenape "father," Cuyloga, spoke the words that siphoned out his white blood and put Indian blood in its place. Now the Yengwes, the white soldiers, were taking him back to his "true" home. Inside of him hate and anger spread like poisons. The Light in the Forest, by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Conrad Richter, will touch a new generation with its lasting truths.

About the author

Conrad Richter was born in Pine Grove, Pennsylvania on October 13, 1890. Richter started a small publishing business and wrote magazine fiction and nonfiction books on scientific philosophy. Conrad Richter won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel, "The Town," in 1951. The book was the third in what became known as Richter's Ohio Trilogy. These books were later published in one volume entitled, The Awakening Land: The Trees, The Fields, The Town. The books followed the life of Sayward Luckett Wheeler who was widely considered one of the most sensitively drawn pioneer women in fiction. The trilogy describes her participation in the gradual replacement of the gloomy and dangerous Ohio forest wilderness with new farming communities and a thriving town. Although Richter published more than 20 other novels and collections of short stories, most of which featured pioneers battling their environment, and some of which won their own awards, he is still best known for his Ohio Trilogy. Richter has written many other books including "Early Americana," a collection of short stories, "The Sea of Grass," a book about crooked politicians and cattlemen, and "The Light in the Forest," a book about the kidnapping of a white boy by Native Americans. He also won a National Book Award for "The Waters of Kronos" in 1961. "The Sea of Grass," was also nominated for the National Book Award in 1937. Conrad Richter died in Pottsville, Pennsylvania on October 30, 1968.