The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Lopez, Matthew. The Inheritance. Faber and Faber. London. Revised edition, 2018. The play is structured in two parts of three acts each, with characters frequently stepping out of the narrative to directly address the audience and describe the action.

The play begins with a prologue, in which the members of a group of young men – which, throughout the play, functions as a kind of Chorus – struggle to find the right way to begin writing the stories they want to tell. One Young Man speaks of the value of re-reading a favorite novel and using it as a source of inspiration. In response, a representation of the author of that novel, British writer E.M. Forster, appears. Forster – referred to throughout the play by his middle name, Morgan – coaches both the Young Man and the other members of the Chorus to begin telling the stories that are important to them. The Young Man quotes the beginning of that favorite novel – Forster’s Howards End – and reworks it into a beginning for his own story.

The focus of the play then shifts into the Young Man’s story – specifically, the narrative of a pair of lovers, the steady and compassionate Eric and the more flighty and emotional Toby. Toby, who is having his successful first novel produced as a play, gets involved with an actor in the production. Eric, meanwhile, develops a friendship with an older gay man who lives in the same apartment building, and who tells him stories about both his much-loved house in the country and how he opened that house to take care of young men dying in the early days of the AIDS epidemic. When the frail Walter dies unexpectedly, his partner Henry learns that as a result of the relationship Walter developed with Eric, Walter left instructions for Eric to be given the house in the country. Henry’s sons, however, lead him to ignore those instructions, and Henry gives Eric another token of Walter’s memory instead.

Meanwhile, Toby’s behavior becomes increasingly erratic, and he and Eric break up. Toby becomes involved with a street hustler named Leo, who strongly resembles Adam and who gets himself into a position where he is emotionally abused by Toby. Eric and Henry spend more and more time together, with Eric eventually talking Henry into taking him to see the house in the country. Part One of the play ends with Eric visiting the house, which has a powerful effect on him.

Throughout Part One, Morgan and the members of the Chorus – sometimes in character, sometimes anonymously – interject comments and narration that reveal additional details about the story, the characters, and the meaning of events.

Part Two begins during Eric’s visit to the house. Henry asks Eric to marry him, and Eric is at first reluctant, becoming even more so after Henry is confronted by several of Eric’s friends. Eric eventually says yes, but the wedding at the country house is interrupted by the arrival of a drugged-up Toby and Leo. Toby says he is there to prevent Eric from entering a marriage where there is no love. As Eric tries to defuse the tense situation, Henry recognizes Leo, and orders him and Toby to leave. Later, in a confrontation with Eric, Henry reveals that he had paid Leo for sex, but begs Eric to not leave him. Eric forgives him, and the two of them continue their marriage, with Henry continuing to spend more and more time away.

The relationship between Toby and Leo deteriorates, to the point at which Toby disappears, and Leo is left alone to resume his life on the street. As his personal situation deteriorates, Toby holes himself up in a hotel room, and writes a long play that he believes tells the truth of his life. His agent rejects it, and Toby flies into a frantic, drug induced rage. Meanwhile, Leo encounters Eric, who takes him out to the house in the country so he can begin to heal from what his life has done to him. There, they meet the house’s caretaker, Margaret. She tells them of her long history with the house, having been the mother of one of the first young men to have died there under Walter’s care. She quickly becomes an ally and companion to both Leo and Eric, all three of them taking care of each other as Leo heals, and as Toby kills himself, unable to deal with who he has become.

In the first of two brief epilogues, Margaret and the Chorus narrate how Eric and Leo lived long and happy lives, both dying at a good age in the country house. In the second epilogue, the narrative flashes back to a point at Eric’s fortieth birthday, when Henry has an encounter with his memories of a loving and compassionate Walter.