Disillusioned with his marriage to the controlling Ursula, haunted by the death of his sister, and unsettled by the vandal threatening the security of his home, a young Dubliner, Stephen, moves to New York hoping to make a clean break.

He is quickly swept up in an affair with Holfy, a fiercely independent woman fifteen years his senior, but before long finds himself living a divided life, unable to sever this ties to Ursula, Dublin and the past. As Holfy begins to fray, Stephen's sense of dislocation intensifies, leaving him for a home that no longer seems to exist.

This is a novel crafted of raw emotion and sensuality, an unflinchingly honest portrait of a man faced with the great uncertainties of death, desire and truth. It is the debut of an astonishing new Irish talent.