Gracious Living plunges into the excesses of the 1980s. Adrian Dadswell, an entrepreneur, is the owner of a holiday resort that boasts everything from an indoor golf range to a fake rain forest. Adrian has a former wife and a disabled daughter who, together with their friends, live very differently from Adrian and his white-shoe brigade. It is these women - young and old, married and single, lesbians and mothers - who come to dominate the novel. The book explores the value of diversity, while at the same time presenting a harshly witty examination of materialism.