Man Booker Prize–winning author David Storey takes us to a crumbling English town where a childhood friendship blossoms into obsessive love

Leonard Radcliffe is the last heir to a proud family name that has nearly been forgotten. All that remains of the Radcliffe legacy is the Place: a ramshackle manor that once loomed over the countryside, but is now hemmed in by public housing and all but shaken apart by the trains that pass beneath it. At age 9, Leonard is shy, lonely, and too smart for his own good. When he becomes the target of school bullies, he is saved by the charming brute Vic Tolson, which marks the start of a friendship that will both define and destroy the two boys' lives.

When Vic and Leonard meet again as adults, their dormant childhood friendship erupts into an irresistible physical passion. As the Place crumbles around them, Leonard and Vic pursue a love so powerful it can only end in death.