It's a rare thing to find a book that so totally constructs a world so vividly inhabited by a range of characters of great depth and complexity, to such affecting ends. Perhaps it helps to grow up in a town in the death throes of de-industrialisation. To be a parent of a teenager (and another nearly there). To be not quite as courageous as one might like to be when it comes to expressing one's innermost feelings, but to be a man who has never quite fit in with the 'world of men'.

Whatever the reasons, I loved this book. I suspect that a number of these characters, their trials, choices, bravery and cowardliness will stay with me for a very long time. Wonderful stuff!