Overview

It is early autumn of 1916 at the Gant boarding house and 17 year-old Eugene Gant is about to leave the home that has become a prison to his family. His father seeks solace in drink and the craftsmanlike task of carving an angel out of stone, his ascetic mother devotes herself to the boarding house and its denizens, his tubercular brother Ben is dying, and his sister is a stay-at-home drudge. After a brief affair with an attractive boarder, Eugene finally leaves, looking toward a brighter future ahead.