To Florence, not long after the end of the second world war, two young people come to teach English at the British Institute: Iris Crediton, who arrives with a whole string of connections (her mother was a famous pianist, well-known in Florentine expatriate circles), and Jack Prentice (his very surname significant), from a workingclass northern family with no social pull anywhere.

They contrast in other ways: pretty Iris has a natural sense of style and a flair for languages, both of which serve her well as life opens up beyond the institute; Jack, clever though he is, and a natural scholar, is defeated by the Italian language. As for style, he won't forsake the scuffed brown shoes, Harris tweed jacket, and shapeless grey flannels that proclaim him everywhere as English. But the reader sees that, at a deeper level, they share other more important qualities. Among these, a lack of experience (both of them are virgins) takes second place to a gentle sense of duty and, dictating this, an inclusive kindness.

Kindness is certainly much needed, and at a premium, in the British colony of Florence, which has sometimes simultaneously both lived off and patronised Italian society. The war having so recently ended, the shadow of Mussolini is everywhere. A good number of those trying to keep up old, elegant ways, and thoroughly looking down on all who haven't known them, had accommodated themselves, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, to the “bullfrog” and his regime. Pre-eminent among these is the perverse queen of the colony, Isabella Lambreni, with a collaborationist past, who intimately links its members to one another.

Nor is kindness much more in evidence in the world of the institute itself (which, of course, has always one eye upon the Florentine beau monde). Bitchier even than its greater counterpart, it is animated by gossip and by the preservation of classfeuds imported from England. English snobbery being what it is, Jack suffers more than Iris from the cruelty of its tittle-tattle, and a principal reason for our sympathy for her is her defence of him in the face of it.

Yet it must not be suggested that Francis King is doing anything so simple or limited as offering a satiric portrait of an out-of-touch, incestuous community, for his interest in the individuality of his people, in their uniqueness combined with their comparative helplessness against social, economic and cultural forces precludes easy judgment and demands understanding.

Hugely rich, camp, idle Ivor Luce, who takes such a shine to Jack Prentice, has, superficially, little admirable about him; but numberless small touches in his evolving portrait confer on him dignity, even a nobility of nature. Giles Conquest, director of studies, would seem a sorry figure with his literary delusions and infidelities. Yet, how moving his breakdown is, and his salvation by a (well-evoked) dog! And, conversely, Iris's discovery of what she can accept, because of the strength of her sexual desire, is chilling, alarming—only we are made to suspend tempting censoriousness.

Francis King is a “pure” novelist, who, faced with the complexity of people and their inter-relations, denies himself any idiosyncracies of style or opinion in their presentation. The result of his sacrifice is a novel (this is one of his very finest) of great subtlety and a humane richness.