Steven Darlington widowed and with his sons in the Antipodes, is feeling rather stuck in a rut in his West Country town. Trawling the internet he finds Yeats' poem Sailing to Byzantium, the words of which seem to strike a chord. Further meandering on the internet brings up someone he had known fifty years earlier in the northern city of Cleadonbridge, where he was a student. A reunion of the fiftieth anniversary of his group's graduation is planned for the following year, but Steven decides to visit the city earlier. Events come crowding in; he imagines that he can build a new life in Cleadonbridge and that he can help to reinvigorate the Anglo-Catholic church he attended. However, all comes to naught and he is forced to accept that, in the words of the poem, Cleadonbridge is indeed No Country For Old Men. Part of the novel describes the reunion and there is a tantalising ending.