An outcast in his own land, forced to sell his beloved fields to pay for his wife's funeral and the rearing of his young daughter, Conor Kelly is increasingly bitter at the life he has been pushed into. As his daughter, Helen, grows up, her attempts to move out of her father's dark shadow begin to drive them apart.A doomed relationship with a local boy takes Helen to London and its world of shadows, broken dreams, and lives lived out in exile. Here she meets an Irish Underground worker who brings her deeper into the heart of herself than she could ever have imagined. When she finally returns to face her father, she sparks a battle of wills which begins to turn only as Kelly weakens in the face of age, and Helen discovers a life she can finally call her own.
