It is 1977. Manchester is on the verge of becoming the underground music capital of the world, and seven miles away in Stockport, eleven-year-old Ann is on the verge of something equally big: puberty.

Then one morning, her dad takes her to school, drives away and kills himself. Left alone with her unravelling mother (and a doomed rabbit called Bugsy), Ann tries to make sense of their new life with the help of a strange cast of characters who pass through the family's boarding house.

Unable to escape the shadow of grief and guilt, she sets out to find her own way to stay alive.