Deep Valley

A girl living with her parents on an isolated California farm falls in love with a chain-gang convict working at a nearby highway construction site, and sets out to help him when he escapes. Uneducated and poor, Libby lives a sheltered life in a broken down shack with her unloving parents. When a work crew of San Quentin convicts arrives to put in a new road, she takes an interest in Barry, a wild and uncontrollable young man. Despite the advances of upstanding engineer Jeff Barker, Libby opts for Barry and helps hide him when he escapes. However, with the posse hunting, she can't hide him forever. —Gary Jackson <garyjack5@cogeco.ca> Twenty-two year old Libby Saul still lives with her parents, Cliff and Ellie Saul, on their isolated, rundown farm on the edge of the woods on the central California coast. In addition to needing to do all the housework, Libby has to act as the sole intermediary between her bitter parents who no longer interact with each other. Ellie, focused on her hypochondria which leads her to believe that she needs to be bedridden, doesn't trust brusque Cliff to do right by them, especially in his abuse, both physical and emotional. This situation has led to Libby not being socialized to norms, her timidity and insecurity manifested primarily by a stutter. To escape her life, she often wanders through the woods which she knows like the back of her hand, a secret, abandoned cabin which she had made up and considers her emotional home. Their isolation soon will change, as a new highway is being built nearby, the government having purchased part of their property through which the highway will run. The construction crew, which contains prison inmate labor, is working on the stretch near their home; Libby often secretly watches them work from the hills above. In the Sauls meeting many of the workers, Cliff and Ellie individually try to act as matchmaker for Libby and the kindly construction foreman, war veteran Jeff Barker, who indeed is interested, while Libby can't help but be drawn to convict Barry Burnette, partly in understanding his plight as feeling like she is in a prison of her own. When circumstance allows Barry to escape, he and Libby eventually clandestinely meet and fall in love, she learning that his impetuous behavior has led to all his problems, including this current incarceration. The question is whether there can be a future for them, especially as they plan for one while the authorities, led by Sheriff Akers, a bulldog of a man, are on a manhunt for whom they consider a dangerous escapee. —Huggo A young girl, raised on a small, remote farm by parents who haven't talked to each other in years, falls in love with a convict who has escaped from a nearby road gang. As the posse closes in, the couple realizes that the young convict's uncontrollable acts of rage have, and will, prevent them from enjoying the happy life they had planned for each other. —Doug Sederberg <vornoff@sonic.net>