When Dinah Brooke’s second novel, was first published in 1973, it was described as “squalid and startling,” “nastily horrific,” and a “monstrous parody” of upper-middle class English life. It is the story of Giles Trenchard, who grows up isolated in an atmosphere of privilege and hidden violence; who goes to war, and returns; and then, one day—like the hero of Joseph Conrad's classic commits an act that calls his past, his character, his whole world into question. Out of print for nearly half a century (and never published in the United States), reveals a daring writer long overdue for reappraisal, whose work has retained all its originality and power. As Ottessa Moshfegh writes in her foreword to this new edition, Brooke evokes childhood vulnerability and adult cruelty “in a way that nice people are too polite to admit they understand.”