In Starlight Geoffrey Lewis tells a tale of schoolboy friendship set against the backdrop of the Oxford Canal in the days when the commercial trade was in decline, the canal itself threatened with closure. It is a story whose mood ranges from heartwarming humour to unbearable poignancy in which he conjures up the world of the 1950s as the outcast lock-keeper's son takes the townie boy under his wing. The newcomer discovers the world of the canals as historical events and real characters flit past in the background; the author leads the reader through the long heat-wave of the summer of 1955, as it was seen by an eleven-year-old boy living in a little North Oxfordshire village.