The "Billy Gogan" story is a fictional memoir told by an old Army general of his adventures as a young man. "Billy Gogan, American," opens with recently orphaned Billy Gogan fleeing Ireland on the eve of the Great Hunger either because he is the son of a dangerous revolutionary, or because his cousin doesn't trust him around his daughter. Billy befriends a destitute Irish peasant named Maire and her young daughter Fiona, and together they endure a harsh passage to New York, America's greatest city. They get separated as they debark, and Billy searches tirelessly for them in the dangerous Five...