In the "Boogie Nights" era of the 1970s, Betty Browning and her lover, boxer Malcolm Miles, travel from the fog-anchored grime of Halifax to sunburnt Corpus Christi and back, meeting tragedy and bloodshed along the way. This verse novel smoulders with forbidden lust and blazes with brutality. With his trademark artistry, Clarke fearlessly ignites the grotesque and repugnant. Then, in a breath, he carries us ". . . to a hedonistic Eden, A wide largesse of green and flowers, And the unaccustomed gilding of light Granting everything a gold crust."