Fifteen-year-old Justin Lyle does not see in himself the qualities he admires in heroes like his paternal grandfather, awarded a medal of honor during World War II, or in the fictional heroes of television and comic books. Growing up in the declining manufacturing town of East Liberty, New York—beset by unemployment, rising crime, and an influx of drugs, and encircled by struggling dairy farms—Justin feels isolated and decidedly unheroic. These feelings are intensified by his parents’ divorce, his longing for an unattainable girl, and the death, eight years previous but still a potent memory, of his infant brother. When Justin steps "over the line" one afternoon, attempting to help the drug-addled girlfriend of an unstable bully, he triggers a series of increasingly perilous encounters. By week’s end, Justin has been drawn into his community’s sinister underworld and compelled to unexpected action and a fresh understanding of the complexities of heroism.

The author of Boys: Stories and a Novella, Lloyd again illustrates his pitch-perfect ear for capturing the detached vernacular and emotional angst of adolescence. Lloyd brings to life the trials of a small, Upstate New York town, creating a story that is as real as it is fictional.