A young boy named Matty is rescued from a horrible fire during the London blitz and is permanently mutilated. He grows up to be a religious visionary. As in all Golding's works, the force for good is balanced by a force for evil, in this case a pair of twins who have been seduced by the attractions of darkness. The novel's title comes from Milton's description of Hell in "Paradise Lost." This harsh novel is reportedly the only one of Golding's works that he did not like to talk about.