The story of Chris Guthrie, torn between her love of the land and her desire to escape from the narrow horizons of a peasant culture, is the thread that links the volumes, 'Sunset song' 'Cloud Howe' and 'Grey Granite' The personal joys and sorrows of Chris's life are interwoven with the greater historical and political events the first world war, the general strike, the hunger marches of the 1930's to create a picture of Scotland and its people