Unable to find employment at home and deciding to go to sea, young Wellingborough Redburn signs on the Highlander, a merchantman out of New York City and bound for Liverpool, England.
One of the unique elements included in the novel are poems and letters from Vietnam sent by Marine officer Dan Guenther (U.of Iowa, MFA, 1973), who later published the novels China Wind (Ivy, 1990) and Dodge City Blues (Redburn Press, 2007).
Rosaly's New School is set in Goathland, Yorkshire, and At School with the Roundheads set at 'Redburn', an amalgam of Saltburn and Redcar.