In a land devastated by war, a nameless narrator pursues an elusive white-haired woman in the clutches of a government official known only as 'The Warden'. Neither will give her up, but an ecological apocalypse is indifferent to their rival claims. As a terrifying wall of ice continues its incursion over the land, freezing everything in its path, it seems that only the white-haired woman is resigned to the fate of the world.

'A classic, a vision of unremitting intensity which combines some remarkable imaginative writing with what amounts a love song to the end of the world. Not a word is wasted, not an image is out of place.' — Times Literary Supplement

'Few contemporary novelists could match the intensity of her vision.' — J.G. Ballard