Robbie Coyle dreams of going to space. In 1970s Scotland this ambition marks him out almost as much as his eccentric family does – in particular, his avidly socialist father. Indoctrinated in the ways of the Left, Robbie can’t entertain the idea of going into orbit with the capitalist Americans. So he gets a ‘teach yourself Russian’ book from the library and settles down with Einstein’s Meaning of Relativity by his side.

Later, however, his fantasies take on a darker shade. In an imagined communist Scotland, post-World War II, the young recruit Robert finds himself at the Installation, a closed, bleak town run under surveillance and dedicated to scientific research. Astronomers have discovered a black hole and the Party will stop at nothing to attain it. The Red Star, as it comes to be known, heralds both the awakening and the extinguishing of Robert’s adulthood: the discovery of cruelty and of love; and the realization that the most passionate of dreams may be merely a chimera.

Written with Andrew Crumey’s characteristic brio, Sputnik Caledonia is rich with the tenderness and frustrations of family life, comic and sinister by turns, and above all, audaciously imaginative – an exploration of space, of society, and of the tenacity of the human spirit.