Eight-year-old Horty Bluett has never known love. His adoptive parents are violent; his classmates are cruel. Therefore he runs abroad and joins a carnival. Performing alongside the fireaters, snakemen and “small people,” Horty can be accepted.

But he is not safe and sound. For when he manages to lose three fingers within an accident plus they grow back, it becomes obvious that Horty is not like other males. And this “difference” is something that some people should use.

Now Horty has learned that his difference is a risk not merely to his own lifestyle, but to the lives of the outcasts who have, for so a long time, provided for him a place to call home.

Theodore Sturgeon makes the multiple wounds of loneliness, dread, and persecution with uncanny accuracy with this vividly drawn, expertly plotted masterpiece.