a teenage odyssey this epic for a new millennium describes teenager adam lycetts journey from comfortable home to cardboard box when he flees his violent stepfather to find his real father somewhere in contemporary london , a dickensian cityscape populated by gin-swilling , pill-popping juveniles bent on burglary , mugging and sex , by fat-cat lawyers and bankers swindling their clients , by an idle aristocracy abusing the poor and by people living , and dying , under bridges .