This novel that echoes the styles of Joseph Conrad and V. S. Naipaul follows a young Guyanese engineer appointed to help save and shore up a Kent coastal village's sea defenses, and his relationship with the old woman with whom he lodges. Learning more about the village's history through his relationship with Mrs. Rutherford, the narrator discovers that underlying the village's Englishness is a latent violence that echoes the imperial past, forcing him to not only reconsider his perceptions of himself and his native Guyana, but also to examine the connection between land and memory.