Louisa and Harry are both haunted. Louisa’s ghost is Tom, a son who took his own life. Harry’s spectres are no less troubling for still being alive; a failed marriage and unknown daughter pluck at his mind, are ‘imprinted on him’. These baby boomers, portrayed in alternating third-person chapters, are poorly matched against contemporary societal challenges, and possibly each other. Ex-soldier Harry’s increasing solitude is underpinned by yearning for the wartime social ideal of mateship, and life apart from women, while Louisa is in thrall to the ‘woman’s fantasy’ of shopping.