This book is about relationships - the relationship between Neve and her husband, Edwyn, with her parents, with people in general.
Neve is a writer, normally working from home though she has had jobs in bars etc in the past. She is married to a much older man, Edwyn, who, as he keeps telling her, works full time and is not well. Edwyn keeps stressing that Neve comes from a working class background and constantly refers to her as being inferior. Edwyn is one of those people who can never forget a mistake made in the past by someone and keeps bringing up one off past events as reoccurring incidents. You really rather wonder why they married or stayed married.
The book consists of flashbacks to other periods in Neve's life where we learn of her parent's broken marriage and Neve's fractured relationship with her father. We meet her mother who left her second husband and is trying to start life again in new area. We learn of Neve's previous relationships and how she lived in a friend's apartment for two years before moving to Glasgow. We also learn about the early days of the relationship between Neve and Edwyn with contrast to the present.
Neve is the narrator so the story is told from her viewpoint, however there are large sections of dialogue where we learn much of the other characters in the novel, as well as about Neve as she questions her reactions to people, especially her husband.
This book was short listed for the James Tait Black Award for 2017.
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