'The effect of the book is massive . . . loving, deep and perceptive'Sunday Times'Bragg has a very sure touch with his characters: they live'Anthony Burgess, author of A Clockwork OrangeIn the shadow of Hadrian's Wall, two young men chafe at the constraints of rural life and yearn to break free from the courses set for them: John Foster, driven hard by his tyrannical, ambitious father on their tenant farm, and Arthur Langley, reluctant inheritor of his father's waning estate. Though class has long kept their neighbouring families apart, the pair form an intense friendship - until John makes the mistake of falling for Arthur's mercurial sister.