In a small town in Illinois, two families share many things. They share so many, in fact, that jealousy eventually leads to a murder. The crime leaves the town shaken and puts an end to the friendship between two solitary boys: the narratora boy who has recently lost his motherand Cletus, the murderer s son. This rupture wounds the narrator, but it won t be until almost 50 years later that he will realize just how much it has affected him, forcing him torevisit those days, to revisit his friendship with Cletus and the events leading up to the murder. The mysterious forces that make us reexamine our past are the focus of this novel written by Maxwell based on his own childhood memories, a novel which is considered his best work and won him the American Book Award in 1980."En un pequeno pueblo del estado de Illinois, dos familias comparten muchas cosas. Comparten tantas, de hecho, que los celos llevan finalmente a un asesinato. El crimen sacude a la comunidad y rompe la amistad que unia a dos ninos solitarios: el narrador de la novelaun chico que recientemente ha perdido a su madrey Cletus, el hijo del homicida. Al narrador esa ruptura le afectara, pero no sera hasta casi cincuenta anos mas tarde cuando se de cuenta de cuanto le ha marcado y vuelva sobre aquellos hechos: sobre su amistad con Cletus y sobre los acontecimientos que precedieron al asesinato. Maxwell explora las misteriosas fuerzas que nos obligan a examinar nuestro pasado en esta novela construida a partir de sus recuerdos juveniles, la cual esta considerada como su mejor obra y le gano el American Book Award en 1980.""