Young Kevin O'Brien is caught between heaven and hell, torn between the tenderness of his young, adulterous mother and the brutality of his work-gnarled, drunken father. Kevin's world is unrelenting: bone-crushing poverty, bullying, his first adolescent yearnings, and the fire of sin. Yet, in Kevin's imagination, there is hope.

The Wanton Troopers, Alden Nowlan's first novel, was published after his death in 1983. This Reader's Guide edition includes the final page omitted from the original edition and restores many of Nowlan's original phrases. It also features a poignant afterword by David Adams Richards, an extended biographical note by Nowlan scholar Patrick Toner, and excerpts from an interview by Jon Pederson conducted a year before Nowlan's death for the celebrated NFB film, Alden Nowlan: An Introduction.