This is a story as bleak as a rain-drizzled Saturday in November. Russell Banks presumably draws on his own experience as the son of an alcoholic New England plumber to tell the story of Wade Whitehouse through the eyes of his college-educated brother Rolfe. It is the story of the cycle of violence. Wade is the former high school athlete whose promising future never materializes. The story focuses on Wade's final two weeks in Lawton, New Hampshire in which one death leads to another, and then another.
Perception becomes reality.
Flashbacks give the reader painful insight into how one tormented individual contributes to the creation of another.