Four teenage boys deal with the hopes, dreams, traumas, and challenges of adolescence as they come of age in industrial Birmingham, a British city that is confronting its own economic crisis, during the upheaval of the 1970s.

"For Patterson Wells, disaster is the norm. Working alongside dangerous, desperate, itinerant men as a tree clearer in disaster zones, he's still dealing with the loss of his young son. Writing letters to the boy offers some solace. The bottle gives more. Upon a return trip to Colorado, Patterson stops to go fishing with an old acquaintance, only to find him in a meth-induced delirium and keeping a woman tied up in the bathtub. In the ensuing chain...

A chance encounter between two childhood friends, including one who escaped an abusive father, reveals how their fortunes have reversed. "[A] tale of two men whose accidental meeting one morning recalls their boyhood thirty-five years ago. Back then, Tommy was separated from his sisters after he stood up to their abusive father. Jim was by Tommy's side through it all. But one winter night, a chance event on a frozen lake forever changes the balance...

Buddy Hayes is an ugly, defiant little man, a would-be Don Juan trapped in Quasimodo's body. He lives with his mother and ailing grandfather in a decaying, post-industrial city. The mother is Emily Post with a color changing and a mood-indicating scar. The grandfather is a one-eyed double amputee, who spends his days happily dangling in a hydraulic patient lift. Their life is a working-class hallucination of blueblood extravagance. They luxuriate...

Jason Prosper grew up in the elite world of Manhattan penthouses, Maine summer estates, old-boy prep schools, and exclusive sailing clubs. A smart, athletic teenager, Jason maintains a healthy, humorous disdain for the trappings of affluence, preferring to spend afternoons sailing with Cal, his best friend and boarding-school roommate. When Cal commits suicide during their junior year at Kensington Prep, Jason is devastated by the loss and transfers...