As nine members of the Hegarty clan gather for the wake of their drowned brother Liam, his sister Veronica remembers the secret he shared with her about what happened in their grandmother's house thirty years ago, a betrayal that spans three generations. "The nine surviving children of the Hegarty clan are gathering in Dublin for the wake of their wayward brother, Liam, drowned in the sea. His sister, Veronica, collects the body and keeps the dead...

In Terenure, a pleasant suburb of Dublin, in the winter of 2009, it has snowed. Gina Moynihan, a girl about town, recalls the trail of lust and happenstance that brought her to fall for "the love of her life," Sean Vallely. As the city outside comes to a halt, Gina remembers the days of their affair in one hotel room or another, long afternoons, made blank by bliss and denial. Now, as the streets and the stillness and the vertigo of the falling snow...

The sum of these stories is a tapestry of people struggling to find contentment with one another--and with themselves--in a rapidly changing Ireland.

Centering around celebrated Irish poet Phil McDaragh, who was lauded in public but was carelessly selfish at home, three generations of McDaragh women must contend with inheritances—poetic wonder, abandonment and a sustaining love—in this intricately woven tapestry of longing, betrayal and hope.