Set in a working-class community in Newcastle upon Tyne at the very beginning of the 1960s, The Day of the Sardine is a powerful novel of disaffection, which charts a young man's uneasy passage into adulthood. Harsh, and at times comic, the story of its protagonist, Arthur Haggerston, takes place against the background of a young workforce absorbed into tedious, repressive employment where the only outlet comes from street violence and gang warfare. As Arthur reflects on his search for a moral framework within the anarchy of modern society, he speaks for all of us, poetically and passionately, in a way that feels as true today as the period in which the tale is set.