Saul Francis's 'A Certain Darkness: A Childhood Remembered' is a novella about growing up in Britain in the 1970s. Composed of apparent recollections, and memories, odd facts about England as it was, and intimations about what it was becoming, the novella is written in the style of a roman a clef interwoven with a child's view of becoming conscious and taking a place in a family, a city, a country. undergoing change.