Leaving a rural Northamptonshire comprehensive to study philosophy at University College London was always going to be a jarring experience for Fergus Malone. Growing up in a big Irish immigrant family had already made him a bit of an outsider, after all.

Though insistent that he can forge his own destiny, Fergus abruptly learns that forces he had barely even acknowledged implacably compete to shape him: claims of blood, brain, heart and flesh all clamour to be heard.

Beneath it all, as he faces inner crisis, Fergus finds himself re-enacting the ancient and unending quarrel between poetry and philosophy.

What’s love got to do with it? Maybe everything.