Uniting the author's lyrical and philosophical flights of narrative in a satire whose savagery is only relieved by irrepressible laughter, this work explores the underlying meaning of South Wales' history, which is not so much documented as laid bare for universal dissection and dissemination. The novel, with its distinctive plural narration, is a choric commentary on human illusion and knowledge, on power and its attendant deprivation, on dreams and their destruction.