The scene of Alice McDermott's brilliantly observed and poignant second novel is suburban Long Island in the sixties. Rick and Sheryl are high school sweethearts abruptly separated by Sheryl's mother when she discovers her daughter is pregnant. Their story is narrated by a neighbour of Sheryl's who, as a child, watched the progress of Rick and Sheryl's romance with admiring fascination. As she describes her indelible memories of that night, when Rick came to rescue Sheryl from the prison of her house, she creates a wry, bittersweet elegy for young love, that most intense and unalloyed of human relationships.