 The book discusses Timothy's life before the events of "The Cay," when he was living in "Back O' All," the poorest section of what was then the squatter's village of Charlotte Amalie, on the then Danish-held United States Virgin Island of St. Thomas (of which Virgin Island it is now the capital), and Phillip Enright's life after the same events.The theme to this story is making dreams a reality.According to "Timothy of the Cay," Timothy had been abandoned as a baby at the residence in Back O' All where Hannah Gumbs, a former coal carrier turned washer-woman who reared him, was a squatter.