Martin is a young Irishman intoxicated by the extremism of decadent French literature and by Clare, a young Irishwoman intoxicated by the demonic luster of the young man. Over the years, he loses his luster in the grind of teaching, marriage, and child-rearing, while she grows in maturity and confidence. Always attracted to bad boys, she eventually takes on a younger English rebel as lover, thus completing the education sentimentale of her husband. Set in London in the seventies, with flashbacks to the north of Ireland, this stylish new novel presents an unblinking view of a timid Irish middle class determined to forget its peasant origins and attain the Holy Grail of bourgeois comfort.