Fairness

Helen is a tiny, blonde, serious girl. Few of those who tangle with her are ever quite the same afterwards. The narrator meets Helen when they are both looking after children during a summer vacation in Normandy. Her adventures in search of a morally satisfying life lead her into situations that are neither satisfying nor moral, from the mining boom in Central Africa to the child abuse scandals of the late 1980s, in this erratic fictional history of the second half of the twentieth century.