Publication
NYRB Classics (2011), Edition: Reprint, 232 pages
Collections
Awards
WH Smith Literary Award (Winner — 1962)
Content and Summary Info
Bisexual Content: One main character (cisgender man) has romantic and/or sexual relationships with people of more than one gender.
Intersecting Marginalized Identities: One main character (bisexual) and several supporting characters are working-class.
Publisher's Summary: Frank, the narrator, is a middle-aged civil servant, intelligent, acerbic, self-righteous, angry. He is in love with Johnny, a young, married, working-class man with a sweetly easygoing nature. When Johnny is sent to prison for committing a petty theft, Frank gets caught up in a struggle with Johnny’s wife and parents for access to him. Their struggle finds a strange focus in Johnny’s dog—a beautiful but neglected German shepherd named Evie.