Underneath is a brutally funny collection about work, comradeship and community, the deals we do to stay human in the dehumanising conditions of the twenty-first century, the years we exchange for a fridge full of food, a well-stocked medicine cabinet and the chance to swim in the sea once a year.

It's a book about work-mates and neighbours, warnings and redundancies, managers with their 'Moray eel smiles' and the alien rich who think that the world belongs to them. Martin Hayes gives a voice to everyone at the bottom of the pile, below the salt, underneath , defiantly asserting that we are not defeated - at least not just yet.