Michaelmas term, 1940. 18-year-old John Kemp has come down from Lancashire to Oxford University to begin his scholarship studying English. But when he invents an imaginary sister to win the attention of a rich but unreliable 'friend', and then falls in love for real, undergraduate life becomes its own strange, complex world .

'The best-loved English poet of the past 100 years.' Sunday Times

'Absolutely contemporary - perhaps even prophetic.' Joyce Carol Oates

'Remarkable . A book about innocence.' Simon Garfield

'A cryptic literary manifesto [about] discovering a literary personality, and the consolation art can provide.' Andrew Motion