Stephen, the main character of Linda Grant’s compelling fifth novel, certainly did have it good. Born in LA in 1946 to immigrant parents, Stephen wins a Rhodes scholarship to study postgraduate science. He makes it to Oxford in time to experience Britain at the end of the swinging sixties and makes good – sort of. Expelled from university for cooking up acid in his lab, he marries Andrea, one of two hippyish girls who live next door, to avoid being sent back to the US where the Vietnam draft looms. Secure between World War II and the war on terrorism, the couple reaps the rewards of accidental good fortune enabled by the times. Dabbling in anarchism and drugs, living in squats and wearing unwashed velvet are no barrier to achieving middle-class comforts not available to either their parents or their children. But there is a dark side, too, which emerges in the story of Grace, the other girl next door, and in the shadows of wasted potential and death that inevitably accompany ageing.

Grant presents some familiar images of the 1960s and 70s, but her novel has far more to offer than nostalgia or another exposé of baby boomer hedonism. From Stephen at the centre, the focus moves back to his parents and forward to his children. It shows how individuals and ‘generations’ intersect, and the stories people tell and those they keep hidden – particularly within families. Grant’s astute eye for detail, especially in relation to clothing, provides many pleasures – from the fur coat owned by Marilyn Monroe that opens the narrative to the Crocs favoured by Stephen’s father towards the end. Changing times are richly evoked through what people wear, think, do and buy.

Ann Standish is a freelance reviewer and a historian at the University of Melbourne.