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 naivetĂ© sustains their affair, until ultimately leading to an event that will change their lives irrevocably.