THE EYE OF THE DAY

A story of two men from different backgrounds whose lives are interwoven in the years leading up to, and during, World War II.

Poet and novelist Dennison Smith's breakout novel The Eye of the Day opens in a small summer-cottage town in Vermont and begins with an explosion that sends a spike through the head of Amos Cobb, a local man of few words and quiet ways. Amos miraculously survives and goes on to work each summer for the Shaw-Brown family, including their adolescent and passive son, Aubrey, whose scarred but priviledged life will intersect with Amos's until the moment they meet for the last time in WWII Italy. Smith weaves together the lives of these two men, taking readers from Vermont and Princeton to Cuba to Turner Valley and finally the Italian Alps in the last days of World War II, where one man will save the life of the other and transform his own forever. For fans of Joseph Boyden's Three Day Road, the novel features real-life personalities such as Greta Garbo, Albert Einstein, Adolf Hitler, and a vividly menacing portrait of the powerful American tycoon, Irénée DuPont, who elped to supply Nazi war machinery in WWII. Praise for SCAVENGER: "Leonard Cohen's spiritual daughter...Smith threads together a story woven in language that is equally beautiful and harsh, and mixed with mythology and history to contrast the realities of 20th century living." The Globe and Mail Praise for DEVIL AT THE DANCE: "Dennison Smith displays an intoxicating almost Joycean relish for language." Jack Bradley, artistic director, National Theater, London, UK DENNISON SMITH was born and raised in Vermont and Princeton and has lived in Canada and the UK. She is a published novelist and poet and a produced playwright. She is currently completing an MA in creative writing at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, England and is at work on a new novel. She and her husband live in Toronto and part time on an island off the coast of British Columbia.