Ann Severell is an untidy, unwashed, unbrushed seventeen, sulky and angst-ridden, whose father, Henry, is a famous novelist and generally considered a genius. She has never been able to escape the shadow he casts over everyone else, but especially (she believes) over her. People are always asking her questions about her father, not about herself. Anna is not unintelligent but is, naturally, an indifferent student, having been dismissed from her school after running away to York for several days, and having been unhappily and forlornly in love. Her younger brother, Jeremy, is just the opposite -- thoroughly social, determined to be liked, mannerly, polite, and always presentable. Which, of course, drives Anna crazy. Oliver Canning, a critic and devoted admirer of Henry Severell's work, is priggish and moralistic, generally sure of himself and of his opinions and observations -- perhaps because he has bootstrapped himself up from a poor, working-class background. He's prone to telling others how they ought to live their own lives (for their own good), and this is how he approaches Anna's confusion about her life. Oliver can be a pain but he's an excellent teacher of adolescents and has a way of shaking Anna out of her moodiness. Margaret, Oliver's wife, is fragile in many ways. She loves her husband even though he treats her -- well, not badly, but indifferently. She sees Henry as her rescue, to Henry's dismay and Caroline's annoyance. Working through all these interlinked portraits and cross-purposed motivations takes the first half of the book. Then Anna finds herself at Cambridge, though she's rather listless about it. After a year or two, she runs into Oliver again. And then things begin to get complicated. Some of what happens to them is clichéd -- you'll see it coming a mile away -- but Oliver's method of "helping" Anna figure out what she wants to do with her life by being cold and brutal in between fits of passion are certainly original.