`We're lucky to have such an intelligent chronicler of our present' Tessa Hadley on Janet Davey Lorna Parry lives with her three sons, each one lurching into adulthood. Lorna struggles in the claustrophobic loneliness of her home; she's still angry at her ex-husband, uncomfortable around her father's new girlfriend and finds it difficult to talk to her sons. Life seems precariously balanced. Then a shocking event occurs at the boys' school and her world threatens to implode.