A haunted childhood, lived out in two dimensions One is legendary - the sun-fort of Grinian the Field of the Disappeared the house in Donegal where children are stolen away by demonic forces The other is actual - the city of Derry in the 40s and 50s The boy narrator grows up enclosed in these two worlds, sensing they are entwined Through the silence that surrounds him, he feels the truth spreading like a stain until it engulfs him and his family