Miner's son David Powlett - Jones returns from carnage of Western Front in, shell-shocked and bitterly hardened by violence of war. He begins life again as a master at a remote Devon school. As years pass, he begins to find peace. But soon he will have to face up to prospect of another terrible war.
'He built an imposing artistic social history that promises to join those of his great forebears in the long, noble line of the English novel. His narratives belong in a tradition that goes back to John Galsworthy and Arnold Bennett' Life Magazine