Separate Tracks — Jane Rogers

The first novel from the acclaimed author of Mr. Wroe's Virgins and The Voyage Home.
 
Orph is a strange, silent, friendless young man. Emma meets him when she comes to work at the children's home where he lives. She offers him a room in her student flat. But there, amid the love affairs and politics of university life, Orph's alienation only grows deeper, and his lonely course has the most desperate of consequences.
 
“The writing has a bony strength, the descriptive scenes are compelling though impressionistic, like a documentary screen come true.” -- The Guardian
 
“There can be none better than Jane Rogers' harsh, lyrical and relentlessly realistic Separate Tracks . . . This is a sad and dramatic story, deeply felt though never stridently written. It is a remarkable first novel, breaking new ground.” -- Financial Times
 
“Deftly, powerfully done. It deserves to rank with The Collector.” -- New Society