"Williams's The Heart of a Distant Forest is, quite simply, one of the finest works of fiction in the history of Georgia literature—a lyrical, tender story of a man who rediscovers his life on his journey to death. Williams's writing is more than masterful storytelling; it is word—art. The South has few writers his equal."
—Terry Kay, author of The Valley of Light
"It is precisely because Lachlan is not a larger-than-life character that we come to care and find ourselves moving eagerly with him from one day to the next."
—New York Times Book Review
Retired professor Andrew Lachlan has returned to his family home on a lake in central Georgia to die. And yet he has never felt so alive, so ready to learn about the natural world around him. Having taught all his life, he is ready for solitude. But a young country boy, Willie Sullivan, disrupts Lachlan’s search for order and rekindles memories he thought long dead.
Lachlan also finds Callie McKenzie, a woman he loved years earlier, and they soon begin to see in each other reflections of the lives they once led. Lachlan’s journal of his year by the lake leads him to a deeper understanding of himself and the world.