Terry Davis "burst onto the literary scene with a celebrated piece of literature that remains to this day a bible for many high school wrestling coaches and their charges," wrote young adult novelist Chris Crutcher in the introduction to the 2002 edition of Davis's Vision Quest. That novel, adapted for a film in 1985, has had a long shelf life, reaching out to young readers over the span of more than two decades to talk about what it means to take life on your own terms, and to create, as Crutcher wrote, your own "challenges."

"My goal when I write is to create a reality on the page that pulls the reader in so deeply that his own reality evaporates and there is only the story we are living through together," commented Davis in an interview with Authors and Artists for Young Adults (AAYA). With his first novels, Davis did...