Vic meets the beautiful but demanding Ingrid and learns about love, lust and life the hard way in the industrial north of the 1950s. Along with Alan Sillitoe, John Braine and Keth Waterhouse he is considered one of the pioneers of the 1960s school of northern literary realism. Stan Barstow's landmark 'Brit-Lit' novel of the sixties immortalized Vic Brown, the amiable working-class lad from the North and led the way for author's like Nick Hornby writing similar slice-of-life drama.

First published in 1960, it has long been used as a set text in British schools. It has also been translated at various times into a film of the same name starring Alan Bates (1962), a television series (1973) starring Clive Wood, a radio play and a stage play.