Originally this book was published in 1978, it was inspired by, and was intended as a tribute to, George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

In 1985, former teacher Bev Jones mourns the death of his wife, who was killed in a hospital fire that occurred in the midst of a firemen's union strike,[3] leaving him alone with his 13-year-old daughter Bessie, who is sexually precocious and unable to comprehend the difference between reality and fantasy due to a thalidomide-like drug taken by her pregnant mother.

Bev is eventually apprehended during one theft and sentenced to re-education at a state-run psychiatric prison, where he is subjected to propaganda films and lectures in an attempt to convert him into a useful member of society (a theme which Burgess also examines in A Clockwork Orange).

Bev returns to London upon learning Bessie will be ejected from the care facility because he refuses to recant his beliefs, and ultimately chooses to sell her as a wife to a wealthy sheikh who takes an interest in her during a visit to the Al-Dorchester hotel, under the reasoning she will at least be safe and satisfied this way.

Still unemployable and homeless, Bev joins a network called the Free Britons, which aims to provide infrastructure and order during the increasing strike-related chaos sweeping Britain, but eventually learns it is a front for an Islamic group aiming at the re-establishment of Britain as a Muslim state.

A few months after the strike, Bev is arrested again and sentenced to life in a secure prison hospital where the only way to be released is to be retrieved by a family member.

All the while, unverifiable news and rumours circulate amongst the prisoners about the outside world, some of which suggest that the Muslim conversion of Britain is well-advanced (for instance, Isle of Man residents discovering a stimulant-depressant drug has been replacing alcohol in their beer for years, in line with Islamic dietary laws).

Now alone and purposeless, and with little chance of having Bessie retrieve him, Bev slips out of his dormitory overnight and deliberately touches the prison's electric fence, killing himself.