This is the second novel by Feeney, who is also a playwright and poet. Like much of her work, it takes place in western Ireland, where she is raising two sons in the same house where she grew up. “I know that might sound quite claustrophobic, but I think that the west of Ireland is a very difficult place to define. There’s a beauty, it’s difficult, it’s unyielding, it’s magical, it’s quite brutal. I will die here,” she told the Irish Times in April. “But I also want to buck that trend of writers leaving to reflect on the place and to be able to speak honestly about it.”