Set in rural Irel&, John Mc Gahern`s second novel is about adolescence & a guilty, yet uncontrollable sexuality that is contorted & twisted by both puritanical state religion & a strange, powerful & ambiguous relationship between son & widower father. Against a background evoked with quiet, undemonstrative mastery, Mc Gahern explores with precision & tenderness a human situation, superficially very ordinary, but inwardly an agony of longing & despair.