A HOLLOW CUP recounts the murder of a beautiful young woman and the effort, twenty-five years later, to find her killer. The novel has three parts. In "The Island" we see the characters growing up in the segregated South. Like most of the book, it presents events from the perspective of the two main characters, Pete Johnson and Luke Stanley. Luke is the first black student to attend New Hope's all-white schools. He and Pete become "friends," a relationship that weaves the strands of the novel together. The "charmed" childhood of the white children is compared to the more turbulent lives of their black contemporaries. The social issues of the day - the milieu in which the book's characters are formed - are examined. "The Mainland" is the end of childhood. Set in 1966, it describes the events that usher Luke and Pete into "the sepia world of grown-ups." They still play children's games, but the harsh truths of life and death increasingly order their lives. "New Hope," at the beginning and end of the book, describes the present-day (1991) action. Pete and Luke, still scarred by the past, return to town to investigate the crime and discover the "truth."