When Sam Richardson returns home to Wigton, a small village in Cumbria, after World War II, he recognizes his limited future there and the social barriers. Because his wife Ellen and small son Joe have spent their entire lives there, however, he chooses to remain, rather than go to Australia to start a new life, and he must now learn to adapt to peace as effectively as he once adapted to war. Wigton, however, represents "his limitations, his predestined mediocrity, his inevitable failure to be at the full stretch of himself," and he feels stifled.

Small events and everyday life, not dramatic plot lines, become the focus of the novel as Sam works at the local factory, tries to reestablish his relationship with his wife Ellen, and serves as a masculine role model for his son Joe. Sam is an Everyman--a man without an education who is dependent upon "the system" for his family's welfare, a man who must put up with slights and insults by his factory bosses if he wants to keep his job, a man for whom there is little or no opportunity for independent thought and action. Sam's big decision to set up his own business is a decision he makes alone, even though it will require enormous sacrifices by the whole family.

RELEASE NOTES:

Left by telephones and toilets by 2nd exit