A childhood memoir of growing up in an eccentric family in 1920s Scotland following a year in the life of 10 year-old Fraser Pettigrew. Fraser lives in the castle-like mansion of the Macintosh clan with his widowed grandmother, Gamma, his mother Moira and his father, the handsome gentleman inventor

A childhood memoir of growing up in an eccentric family in 1920s Scotland following a year in the life of 10 year-old Fraser Pettigrew. Fraser lives in the castle-like mansion of the Macintosh clan with his widowed grandmother, Gamma, his mother Moira and his father, the handsome gentleman inventor, Edward Pettigrew. Part heroic, father figure and part petulant, self-absorbed visionary, Edward unknowingly embroils young Fraser in a series of power struggles between himself and the rest of the family when he risks the family fortune to finance his often times half-witted inventions and begins an affair with Uncle Morris' pretty new bride.