"While Frederica ... falls almost by accident into a career in television in London, tumultuous events in her home country of Yorkishire threaten to change her life, and those of the people she loves. In the late 1960s the world begins to split. Near the university, where the scientists Luk and Jacqueline are studying snails and neurones and the working of the brain, an 'anti-university' springs up. On the high moors nearby, a gentle therapeutic community is taken over by a turbulent, charismatic leader. Visions of blood and flames, of mirrors and doubles, share the refracting energy of Frederica's mosaic-like television shows. The languages of religion, myth and fary-tale overlap with the terms of science and the new computer age. Darkness and light are in perpetual tension and the meaning of love itself seems to vanish; people flounder - often economically - to find their true sexual, intellectual and emotional identity."--Cover.