Scotty’s family owns a lodge near their silver mine in the Colorado Rockies. Summers at the lodge are idyllic for Scotty and his cousin Mickey. The grown-ups are dealing with the complications of business and adult dysfunction, but the boys are more interested in the complications of puberty, especially when Rosalind, the teenage daughter of family friends, is on hand.

To read this quiet, rich evocation of adolescent watchfulness is to experience what it is like to be fourteen years old, waiting for something to happen, aware of everything but oblivious to as much of it as possible. Readers will be reminded of such modern masters as William Maxwell and John Updike.