A charming ne'er-do-well returns to his haunted Irish hometown to uncover the truth about his mother in this "supernaturally skilled debut" (Vanity Fair) and turns the town--and his life--upside down.

Having been abandoned at an orphanage as a baby, Mahony assumed all his life that his mother wanted nothing to do with him. That is, until one night in 1976 while drinking a pint at a Dublin pub, he receives an anonymous note implying that she may have been forced to give him up. Determined to find out what really happened, Mahony embarks on a pilgrimage back to his hometown, the...