For the first time in English translation - Christopher Isherwood's second novel. The First World War is over. Eric Vernon is no longer a boy, but not yet a man. The world around him confuses him deeply, and there are no clear role models left. On one hand, he emulates his father, the hero who led a quiet life full of sacrifices until he ultimately died in the war. On the other hand, he is fascinated by his father's best friend, who survived the war and is now seeking pleasure and forgetfulness in the Berlin gay scene. Christopher Isherwood wrote the novel while in Berlin - it marks his departure into new worlds and serves as a reckoning with his homeland and the narrow-mindedness and provincialism of the English upper middle class.