[1] Set during the Great Depression, the novel focuses on Johnson, an English ex-soldier who comes to New Zealand attempting to find a new life.
Arriving first in Auckland, he is caught up in the era's riots that are a result of the prevailing economic conditions, and heads south to the central North Island working as a farm hand.
The novel's antihero is an existential loner, with no close bonds to others, determined to live by his own means.
The prominence of the novel and the nature of Johnson have led to the term "man alone" being used as a description of a particular archetype in New Zealand and Australian fiction.
According to the Oxford Companion of New Zealand Literature, it is often misrepresented as a celebration of the loner, but is more important for its gritty glimpse of life during economic disaster.