The Go-Between

Strand Staff Pick: “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” So begins L.P. Hartley’s exceptional novel of lost innocence and lasting consequences. The Go-Between recalls the fateful summer its narrator spent at the home of a wealthy schoolmate, where he became the intermediary in a love affair between his friend’s sister and a local farmer. The narrator’s adulation of adults is perfectly rendered, as is his disappointment when they tragically shatter his ideals. The Go-Between is a coming-of-age novel, but it’s also an incisive portrayal of class warfare, and a compelling examination of the complex relationship between the present and the past. - Nicola, Bookseller