After months on the battlefields of France and Germany, Daniel, an American soldier, is unprepared for the shock of witnessing the inhumanity contained within the walls of a concentration camp. He befriends Avrum, a teenage inmate equally ill-equipped for his sudden?freedom.' Natalie, an overtaxed American nurse attached to the Army Evacuation Hospital sent to the camp, forms a bond with both young men. The trio is threatened by Vladik, Avrum's overzealous protector. Under Nazi rule, Avrum had depended on Vladik's golem-like qualities, but after the liberation the benefit of Vladik's protection becomes a liability and eventually a danger. Set against the historically accurate backdrop of the liberation of the Concentration Camp at Dachau, THE CLAY MESSIAH explores the agonizing realities of having to adjust to a life forever altered by violence and horror.