Clem's story begins as the chimney of his mother Ruth's house shatters into pieces as a Spitfire goes through it in pursuit of a German bomber and she goes into labour. He emerges into a loveless house, his grandmother Win despises her daughter for falling pregnant to a soldier just as she did, and at the age of three has to adjust to the arrival of the large strict stranger who is his father. Growing up in a council house under the great skies of Norfork in a house marked by puritanical sexlessness he endures grammar schoool before falling for the daughter of the manor, the beautiful Frankie as in the wider world the Cuban missile crisis and the specter of Mutually Assured Destruction unfolds. Her father employs his and their furtive assignations culminate in a literally explosive tragedy that brutally sunders the pair. Peet weaves his story with great skill and uses Norfolk dialect to create a real sense of life in a Norfolk village between the wars, and the devastating closing pages of the book are shocking and yet, on reflection, give a sense of completion to a book about a man who's life has been defined by life shaking explosions.
