Tom Browning is 36. Bored and frustrated at home, he has reached the point of cynicism as a music teacher in a comprehensive school. Asking a class to respond to the lyrics of some pop music, it is Tom, afraid of growing fat, bald and middle-aged, who discerns a spurious truth in the hope and yearning of the words. He promptly falls in love with the only other person to respond, Claire Bennett, beautiful but seventeen. Their affair progresses through danger, delight and paranoia to an inevitable conclusion.

Don't Stand So Close is a poignant but very funny tale of the adolescent feelings which a person of any age can feel. It also satirises with devastating wit and candour the hypocrisies and follies of those who regard themselves as our moral guardians.

Lloyd Rees is a Senior Lecturer in English and Education in Swansea. In addition to his novels he is a published poet and co-editor of the magazine Roundyhouse.