Gracious Living plunges into the excesses of the 1980s. Adrian Dadswell, an entrepreneur, is the owner of a holiday resort that boasts everything from an indoor golf range to a fake rain forest. Adrian has a former wife and a disabled daughter who, together with their friends, live very differently from Adrian and his white-shoe brigade. It is these women—young and old, married and single, lesbians and mothers—who come to dominate the novel. The book explores the value of diversity, while at the same time presenting a harshly witty examination of materialism.