Christopher is waiting expectantly for life to begin. Orphaned as a young child, he recoils from his adoptive parents’ mundane existence, drawn instead to the bohemian world of his Uncle Col and Col’s charismatic wife Marianne. After Christopher’s adoptive mother suffers a breakdown, he is sent to stay at Erringby, Marianne’s rambling family mansion,
where, immersed in her hedonistic lifestyle, he becomes increasingly obsessed with his aunt.

One particularly debauched summer in 1986, the eighteen-year-old Christopher wakes to find himself in bed with Marianne. But what happened? And who is his sudden mysterious benefactor? As Christopher grapples with the ramifications of that night and questions his own identity, he, Marianne and Col find their lives spiralling out of control.

Unfolding against the changing cultural landscape of the seventies, eighties and nineties, Erringby is a captivating coming-of-age novel with echoes of Great Expectations.