Set in upstate New York, the novel follows four characters as they achieve their aims in lives redolent with loss and hope, humour and sadness, union and alienation. Russell picks up the thread of his critically acclaimed novel The Salt Point (Dutton, 1990) 20 years later and tracks the lives of these friends, some of whom not only lost touch with each other but have also lost their way. Moving, at times shocking and always memorable, it points to where the personal and the political come together and shape our lives in unexpected ways.
