This novel follows the lives of a family living on a remote island off the west coast of Scotland, from 1980 when the family's 3rd child is born, through to 2002. The island is gradually losing people, and the family are becoming estranged as the children leave for schooling on the mainland and then have to decide whether to return. The book is not arranged chronologically, and it's rather episodic as it follows each member of the family separately, but it does work, and by the end, is very moving. It's a sad, downbeat book about a way of life which is disappearing,