Cured by fire

by Tim McLaurin

In Cured by Fire, Tim McLaurin tells the story of Lewis Calhoon and Elbridge Snipes, two men who lead very different lives. Lewis is a building contractor with a comfortable home, a promising future; Elbridge, a migrant worker with an unshakable faith in God, has known only a hardscrabble existence. But they have these things in common: love of nature, respect for family, and homelessness. Through random accidents, each man loses what he holds most dear. And each begins a separate journey - one based on resentment, the other on a heavenly vision - from the tobacco fields of the South, across America, to the rugged Northwest Coast. Ultimately united among the homeless population of Seattle, the two men compare lives and losses. They come to realize, as they learn to lean on each other, that fate and salvation abide by no single rule but must be tempered in the confines of the soul.