Until the Dawn synopsis

Synopsis

UNTIL THE DAWN

by Alec Clayton

A wild party in the SoHo loft belonging to world famous artist Red Warner, the now-famous party that ended with a scream and a mad rush of fleeing bodies, and Red Warner slumped on the floor in a pool of blood like the day's washing from a slaughter house...

Red Warner vanished after that fateful party, never again to be seen in New York. Johnny Lewis, an old friend, sets out in search of the missing artist. His search takes him to Tupelo, Mississippi, where he grew up with Red back when he was known not as Red Warner the artist, but as Travis Earl Warner, the most ferocious defensive lineman ever to play for the Tupelo Golden Wave football team.

While driving from New York to Tupelo, Johnny tells the story of Travis, his mother, Marybelle, and the extended Warner family – a tale that spans three generations and two wars.

It is a coming of age story, a coming out story, and a story that brings together two worlds: the New York art world of the 1980s and the racial strife of the Deep South in the 1960s.

The telling of this tale alternates in episodic chapters set in New York in the present and Tupelo in the past, finally merging in the murder of Travis’s friend Wanda -- and a trial in which Travis is forced to testify against his will.

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