Teeton lives multiple lives in England. One is with a bohemian group of Caribbean artist exiles; another is his curiously intimate mother-son relationship with his English landlady. He is also enmeshed in a revolutionary conspiracy to overthrow a reactionary Caribbean government.

Teeton keeps each aspect of his life in compartments but when the revolt begins, his once separate worlds begin to fuse together with disastrous results.

Perhaps the most famous writer to emerge from the island of Barbados, the now grandfatherly George Lamming was born on June 8, 1927. Though he grew up on the island, like so many West Indian writers he eventually left, emigrating to England in 1950. There, after spending some time working in a factory and broadcasting for the BBC, Lamming became a leader in a Caribbean renaissance that took place in England, along with other exiles like V.S. Naipaul.