A picaresque, serio-comic novel about a fortysomething control freak, who finds himself on the run with a beguiling pregnant woman.
Reacting against his hippy upbringing, Miles lives a life devoted to conformity. His fear of taking risks prevents him from growing emotionally. Then, in his early forties Miles becomes a father. We first see him when he is staying in a bedsit and living for the weekends and access to his young son who he takes to the local fast food restaurants with the other weekend fathers. Desperate to pass on some sort of working philosophy to his child, Miles is faced with a dilemma. He wants him to follow the rules but this has brought Miles no luck in his own life. In fact no one wants to take him seriously. That is until he discovers the pregnant girl whose apparent suicide bid he interrupts. For the first time, it seems that someone is actually listening to Miles. It’s just that her interpretation of what he says is rather different to what he means. Miles sees he has created a monster and, naturally, feels responsible. Their common journey will see Miles revisit his past, coming face to face with a secret which could either undermine his entire identity or give him the courage to finally be himself.