Haunted by a memory of human failure, a man now grown old recalls his friendship, as a boy, with a tenant farmer's son and forces himself and others to recall the cause of a bloody murder and its consequences

On an Illinois farm in the 1920s, a man is murdered, and in the same moment the tenous friendship between two lonely boys comes to an end. In telling their interconnected stories, American Book Award winner William delivers a masterfully restrained and magically evocative meditation on the past. "A small, perfect novel."--Washington Post Book World.

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