2006-08-20 From the back cover of this novel...

"The final volume in the Clayhanger trilogy, following CLAY-HANGER and HILDA LESSWAYS. In many ways this is the most accomplished of the three novels, for Bennett, drawing together the threads of his trilogy, presents already-established personalities in confrontation. Hilda is now married to Edwin Clay-Hanger and the two, with Hilda's son by her disastrous `marriage' to George Cannon, are living in Bursley. As they cope with immediate tensions and with old wounds they are forced continually to reassess their relationship. Bennett is at his best here, recreating a society and its characters -- Auntie Hamps and Tertius Ingpen among them -- and achieving a remarkably subtle and biting portrait of a marriage."