Michaelmas term, 1940. 18-year-old John Kemp has come down from Lancashire to Oxford University to begin his scholarship studying English. But when he invents an imaginary sister to win the attention of a rich but unreliable ‘friend’, and then falls in love for real, undergraduate life becomes its own strange, complex world .’The best-loved English poet of the past 100 years.’ **Sunday Times** ‘Absolutely contemporary – perhaps even prophetic.’ **Joyce Carol Oates** ‘Remarkable . A book about innocence.’ **Simon Garfield** ‘A cryptic literary manifesto [about] discovering a literary personality, and the consolation art can provide.’ **Andrew Motion**