After the suicide of her alcoholic brother Liam, the book's narrator, forty-year-old Veronica – trapped herself in the despair of a disintegrating marriage and an awkward motherhood – decides to shed light on the sinful past that may have led her brother to self-destruction.

In this personal recollection and deep dive, both allies and obstacles stand in the way of the siblings from the large Hegarty family, typical children of small-town Ireland: hot-blooded, irritable, inscrutable, and often self-destructive.

But perhaps the seed of evil did not lie within them? Perhaps the curse that seems to weigh upon the afflicted family was external, a finger that left its mark everywhere;

With her materials being the feelings and the simple yet heart-wrenching things of everyday life, as well as the baseness of their despair, the winner of the 2007 Booker Prize composes a stunning elegy for the corrosive power of love and for the hatred “…of those you didn’t choose to love but love nonetheless.” For the nurturing monster called family.