The lost novel, winner of the 1982 Whitbread Prize. New life flowering from death, new perspectives arising from suffering, a new peace that comes from being tested to the uttermost. To 17 year old Paul Waterford life is beginning to seem a sour business, full of unsolved problems, unhappiness and general stress. Why did his young sister have to die in an air disaster? Why is his parents' marriage so evidently close to breaking up? Tired of the world as he sees it, Paul retreats into the fantasy of an ideal republic, the magnetic centre of his fantasies. But under the pressure of extreme circumstances a lot can change in 24 hours.