A boy with a passion for gardening finds it is both a refuge and a source of conflict when family life falls apart.
Family relationships become strained when Kiren’s Indian mother has to return to India to attend to her dying mother. Kiren is a 14-year-old boy and he and his father are left to move house from a London flat to an old house in Brighton.
Trouble begins when plans are being made for Kiren to join his new school in September.
The GCSE choices are the crux of the problem. Kiren’s mother, Usher, holds strong aspirations for him to qualify as a doctor, as she and most of her family have done but this is not what Kiren wants to do with his life.
The story unfolds as Gordon, Kiren’s father, struggles to steer the family through the emerging crisis. Kiren finds horticultural books and gardening tools abandoned in the loft of their new house, along with a reference to some nearby allotments. A whole new world opens up as he takes on an allotment and meets new friends who become his extended family.
A visit to India brings the family crisis to a head.