Creature Storms

A WW II and Korean War pilot and hero, a patriotic, middle American farmer who’d trusted his government with two sons in Vietnam, and been betrayed in that, after having his farm largely controlled by his government all his life, is in jeopardy of losing his homestead of 150 years. After his death, his sons scramble to hold onto the farm and make sense of all this and each other. A seed that Deke, the middle of three sons, and Barrett, his friend had brought back from Vietnam seventeen years earlier and kept pure, becomes a means of saving the farm, but in the process the hallucinogen from the seed begins to warn them of some imminent catastrophe through raining creatures and Barrett’s visions. The plant the government’s trying to suppress brings them signs and warnings about what their government’s doing, as Barrett begins seeing Vietnamese spirits or “visitors” in the woods and fields when he ingests the stuff. Creature Storms is a rawly told and original work, a grounded human story of three brothers and a blood brother, their love for and struggle with each other, their country, and the sacrifices they make to hold onto their land which they had already risked their lives in war to protect. Politically timely, Creature Storms unfolds on a number of dramatic levels that build into an apocalyptic ending.

Ron Clinton Smith was born in Atlanta. He's a poet, singer, songwriter, athlete and actor who's appeared in such films as Warm Springs, We are Marshall, The Mist and Jayne Mansfield's Car. He continues to write and act wherever film work takes him. Creature Storms is his first novel.