 Its action takes place in the spring term of 1997 (during the time of Tony Blair's landslide victory).Helen Reed, an English novelist in her early forties with two children old enough to look after themselves, arrives on campus to spend the term there as "writer-in-residence" and to teach a creative writing class – actually sitting in for a professor who is spending the term abroad to write a novel.Helen is going through a crisis in her life after the sudden death of her husband Martin a bit more than a year ago.