A chance discovery of a trunkful of books in a most unlikely place transforms the life of a young child in deep rural Jamaica in the 1940s equipping him with a moral compass that allows him to survive child abuse, injustice and corruption. it is a time when the British colony is in a struggle for self government and national identity. In a brutally frank yet humorously self deprecating style, the writer, in this coming of age narrative, examines issues of parenting, corporal punishment, politics and religion as well as the joys and heartaches of teenage love and romance.