Jim Nordon (31 and divorced) has problems. Disliking suburbia, he aims to recuperate as much as possible from the 21st century by renting an apartment on the top floor of Victoria Mansions, an Edwardian building in Southampton Row due for demolition in the coming year. A supposedly successful career in local government means he has denied himself his ambition to become a portrait painter. These problems, if not insuperable, are worsened by the fact that he has to write a report, if possible anonymously, on reducing costs in his own work place. Finally there is the problem of sex. He gains periodic sexual satisfaction from a convenient relationship, but he hires a young girl as PA to help with his report and falls in love with her. This relationship becomes the centre of his life. Although it is a happy love affair, it breaks down when the earlier relationship intervenes. On a Sunday morning after returning to his Manchester home he climbs a hill called The Steep. There he discovers his past. The episode determines him in his decision to change his life. A novel of perceptive characterisation and rich descriptions, written sensitively and poetically with touches of humour, explicit in its treatment of sex, it focuses on love and death and the universal need to confront the steeps that occur in life when choosing between creativity and expediency.