The Lost Boy is a short novella, often counted among Wolfe's most moving work. It is told through the memories of several members of the Gant family, among them the mother, a sister and the brother Eugene, who all recall a boy named Grover. Set in the early twentieth century, it moves between Illinois and a boarding house in the South, and shows how one child's brief life stays in a family's memory. Quieter and more compact than Wolfe's big novels, it shows his gift for memory, tenderness and the passage of time in a form that is easy for new readers to approach.