Pádraic Ó Conaire, a central figure in contemporary Irish-language literature, and two of the women in Ó Conaire’s life (Caitlín Ní Aodha and Mary Morrison) are the central characters in this novel.

In a novel that draws on two of the major themes from Ó Conaire’s own writings, love and betrayal, it falls to the second of the women, Mary Morrison, to come to the aid of the man who has failed her friend Caitlín, and to put Ó Conaire to the test, both as a man and as a writer.