Christopher's life is lived in the shadow of great historical events, with a childhood spent in colonial India, in South Africa during World War II, and then in bleak post-war England.
The book tells of the individual tragedies (and comedies) of a family split by war, and facing the dilemmas of life in South Africa during the Apartheid years, when Aunt Babs commits her life to helping the black Africans in their quest for survival and freedom.
Christopher returns to South Africa after the loss of his wife, taken by a crippling illness, and grief leads him to take many wrong turns. Will he ever be able to move out of the shadow of the valley of death and find a new meaning to his life?