Tom tells the story of growing up in Sydney from the depression of the 1930s to the 1950s. The story follows Tom Donnelly from around eight years of age, living in a Redfern tenement in the 1930s, through years in an orphanage, then boarding houses, finally a bed-sitter in an old house in Darlinghurst, by which time he is about 22 and ready to tackle an uncertain future.Over the years, Tom struggles to find himself and, serially, to forget where he has been, what has happened to him, closing it all out until unexpectedly he is thrust back into it and he at last emerges from the small dark room of his mind and memory into sunshine, free of the past he has faced, even with some humour and with love.