The central character is a young woman, Chris Guthrie, growing up in a farming family in the fictional parish of Kinraddie in the Mearns at the start of the 20th century.

Two younger children go to live with their aunt and uncle in Aberdeen, leaving Chris, her older brother Will, and her father to run the farm on their own.

The author also has some political opinions reflected in the characters of Chae Strachan, the Socialist, and Long Rob, the pacifist, and he shows how they react to the coming of the war.

[2][1] The novel is written in an essentially artificial form of Scots intended to capture the colloquial speech of The Mearns peasants without being inaccessible to English speakers.

[5] An adaptation by Morna Young was staged at Dundee Rep and the Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh under the direction of Finn den Hertog, between April and June 2024.

[6] Jack Webster, the Scottish writer and journalist, wrote a play based on the novel and Lewis Grassic Gibbon's life which toured Scotland in 2008.

The novel was also the inspiration for the Richard Thompson song "Poor Ditching Boy" on his 1972 album Henry the Human Fly.

[7] In 2015, English filmmaker Terence Davies and producer Bob Last released an adaptation of the book, titled Sunset Song, starring Agyness Deyn and Peter Mullan.