The novel begins in London during the Blitz, where a child emerges from a burning building, terribly scarred. He grows up as Matty, a solitary and strange figure, drawn to visions and to religious meaning in the world around him. Around him move other characters, including a schoolmaster and troubled twin sisters, whose lives drift toward his. Set across several decades of postwar England, the book is an unusual, dreamlike story about good, evil and the search for spiritual purpose. It is one of Golding's most demanding and haunting later works.