Despite observing his father's illness and the suffering of the fire-eating Mr. McNulty, as well as enduring abuse at school and the stress of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Bobby Burns and his family and friends, living in England in 1962, still find reasons to rejoice in their lives and to have hope for the future.

"Portions of this novel appeared in ... the magazines Panurge, Stand, and in A Kind of Heaven"--T.p. verso.