Rosa Lane is a fashionable journalist in her thirties, already the picture of London achievement. Her handsome boyfriend is something in politics and her other friends are confident, prosperous and ambitious. But one afternoon, staring at her computer screen at work, she fails to see the point, walks out of her job - and begins her long fall from modern grace.

Joanna Kavenna wrote her first book at 13; inevitably it was appalling. By the age of 24, she had written 7 apparently unpublishable novels, as well as a doctorate. She spent some years trying to make a living by freelance writing, combining this with disastrous stints as an amanuensis. Eventually, exile seemed the best option, so she spent some years living in America, Germany, Scandinavia and France. This habit for nervous travel eventually produced her first published book, The Ice Museum. After finishing The Ice Museum she was living in Paris and London while she wrote Inglorious - her first novel.