George Luckhurst is a bully and racist bigot, determined to control his family and force them to conform to his own twisted beliefs.
Alice Luckhurst, his eldest daughter, is feisty and fiercely independent, with her own ideas on how she wants to live her life.
Calvin Thomas is her lover.
And he is black.
One terrible night in 1922, these three are joined in a gruesome ballet that totally alters their own lives, and the future of everyone around them. Although troubled by feelings of guilt, George cannot escape from his firmly held beliefs, no matter how distorted. He attempts to find salvation by joining a fundamental religious sect.
Two years later, Jimmy Whitehead is born to George's younger daughter, Ivy. He grows up against the background of looming war, hunger and deprivation in 1930s England. But though na?ve, he is also ambitious and determined to escape from the suffocating poverty endured by his family.
Expect tension and drama in a story that mixes humour, religion, sex, hatred and hopeless love, as George takes every opportunity to thwart his grandson's aspirations, while battling with his own guilty desires.