Non-Return

Politics of the workplace, tricks played by memory, distortions of power, and the significance of protest are examined in this sumptuous and provocative novel/biography from a leading left-of-center cultural critic. Set in the political landscape of 1980s Britain, the story shows how the personal merges with the political as a seaman, having survived for five days in the Atlantic Ocean as his shipmates drowned, withdraws from life to the consolation of his allotment; his wife dies as a resident of the Greenham Common peace camp; and his son, the narrator, becomes a draughtsman although he longs to be a poet.