Content Warning: This section of the guide summarizes and analyzes the source text’s graphic depiction of the sexual abuse of children, grief, addiction, and death by suicide.

As Veronica watches her daughters play, she thinks of her brother Liam. She wonders whether it’s possible to capture the story of what happened to him.

Veronica Hegarty grew up in a large family with 11 siblings: Midge, Bea, Ernest, Stevie, Ita, Mossie, Liam, Kitty, Alice, and the twins Ivor and Jem. Veronica believes that having so many children made her mother unable to give each child the attention and care they needed. Veronica visits her mother to deliver the terrible news that Liam is dead.

Veronica wants to tell the story of Liam’s tragic ending, which requires her to return to the past. She starts by fictionalizing the story of how her grandmother, Ada Merriman, met and fell in love with a man named Lambert “Lamb” Nugent in 1925. Ada didn’t marry Nugent; she married his friend Charlie Spillane instead. Veronica imagines Nugent seeing Ada for the first time in a hotel lobby and falling instantly in love.