The Amateur

Lily's an outsider who'll do anything to get in... Francis Steerlock, a middle-aged drifter, hides a hopeless obsession... Sonia, a young hitch-hiker, challenges Francis in a dicey game of hide-and-seek... the elderly Mrs. Stoppit develops an ominous condition... Queenie's preadolescent fascination with the elusive Sonia leads her-and her little brother Tick-across the safe borders of childhood.

Startling, luminous, and cut with metaphysical wit, The Amateur follows these best-intended strangers on an unexpected route to the worst that can happen-and reckons the cost, for better and worse, of being human at all.

Fluh-dump, goes the heart. Fluh-dump. It's not as simple as it looks.