This is one of my favorite books. I started reading it again last night and finished it just recently today. It was a very good read.
The Cay is the story of Phillip Enright, a young boy living in the Carribean during World War II who flees the island with his mother while his father stays behind to help with the war effort. When the ship is torpedoed, Phillip is separated from his mother and ends up alone on a raft with an old black man named Timothy and Stew, a cat who belonged to the ship's cook. During the evacuation from the ship, Phillip was hit on the head by something and ends up going blind.
Like his mother, Phillip is a racist who looks down upon blacks. But as the story progresses with them shipwrecked on a deserted island, Phillip grows to respect and love Timothy who becomes his eyes of the world and teaches him the skills to survive in his condition, skills which become useful for his survival late in the book when Timothy is killed by a hurricane which strikes the island. In the end, Phillip is rescued, reunited with his parents, and undergoes an operation to have his sight restored. But most of all, he has developed a sense of respect for blacks.
A couple years back, I read the sequel, "Timothy of the Cay" which was written more than two decades after this book. It is both a sequel and a prequel, Timothy's chapters focus on his youth, his career on the sea, his owning and commanding a ship, and finally his job on the ship that is later torpedoed, while Phillip's chapters focus on his life after the first book where he undergoes the operation to have his sight restored. I'll have to read it again sometime if I can find a copy.
The Cay is the story of Phillip Enright, a young boy living in the Carribean during World War II who flees the island with his mother while his father stays behind to help with the war effort. When the ship is torpedoed, Phillip is separated from his mother and ends up alone on a raft with an old black man named Timothy and Stew, a cat who belonged to the ship's cook. During the evacuation from the ship, Phillip was hit on the head by something and ends up going blind.
Like his mother, Phillip is a racist who looks down upon blacks. But as the story progresses with them shipwrecked on a deserted island, Phillip grows to respect and love Timothy who becomes his eyes of the world and teaches him the skills to survive in his condition, skills which become useful for his survival late in the book when Timothy is killed by a hurricane which strikes the island. In the end, Phillip is rescued, reunited with his parents, and undergoes an operation to have his sight restored. But most of all, he has developed a sense of respect for blacks.
A couple years back, I read the sequel, "Timothy of the Cay" which was written more than two decades after this book. It is both a sequel and a prequel, Timothy's chapters focus on his youth, his career on the sea, his owning and commanding a ship, and finally his job on the ship that is later torpedoed, while Phillip's chapters focus on his life after the first book where he undergoes the operation to have his sight restored. I'll have to read it again sometime if I can find a copy.
