 The novel is set in a small Western Australian logging village named Sawyer, near the fictional coastal town of Angelus, which has featured in several of Winton's works, including Shallows and The Turning.It is narrated by Bruce "Pikelet" Pike, a divorced, middle-aged paramedic and takes the form of a long flashback in which he remembers childhood experiences of friendship with another boy, of surfing under the mentorship an older male surfing champion, and of repeated woman-boy statutory rape by the older surfer's wife.The main action of the novel takes place in the 1970s.