In a sparse and uncompromising style, this tale tells the story of a boxer from Cymmer in South Wales ready to make his comeback. Abe has ensured that Hector is nurtured into a single-minded fighting machine. He is ready to take on the world, but where do the true dangers lie? Through a series of first-person accounts, a compelling tragic-heroic story unfolds. The traditional values of family and friendship are stripped naked by the relentlessly violent world of boxing. Some are savaged and others liberated, but the consequences of these stark principles leave deep scars on everyone in Hector...

In this classic masterpiece, originally published in 1968, dysfunctional lovers Rees Stevens and Ellen Vaughan must uncover and interpret Ellen's father's journal in order to make sense of their own lives. Faulknerian in its range, hard driven in its narrative telling, singular in style, and fierce in its moral thrust, this richly complex novel uses the fictional sieve of Caib Colliery and the village of Daren to give meaning to the kaleidoscopic history of all of the South Wales valleys over the last century.