The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.â Haunting, moving, evocative, The Go-Between is L.P. Hartleyâs heartbreaking novel about social constraints and childhood innocence. During the long hot summer of 1900, young Leo Colston is invited to stay for a month at a lordly, aristocratic manor in Norfolk. There he falls in love with his friendâs older sister, who commissions him to ferry secret messages to the local farmer, her lover. His naivetĂŠ sustains their affair, until ultimately leading to an event that will change their lives irrevocably.