Publisher's Synopsis
Young Thomas Clancy, angst-ridden and insecure, has failed in his attempt to become a priest, failed again as a teacher, and, having deserted his catholic faith, now stands accused by his fanatical mother of being the cause of his father's apparent suicide. Suffused with guilt he lives alone in his garret making a precarious living as an -odd-job- man, leaving his sister, a Mary Magdalene figure, to support their psychologically damaged mother. By chance he comes to know a beautiful and immensely talented artist, older than himself, the daughter of a wealthy business-man; so begins a passionate but short-lived love affair. Thomas' self-doubt, coupled with a loathing of the capitalist class to which Elaine belongs leads him to end their relationship, leaving her in emotional turmoil. A large part of both their lives is wasted by the demise of that sublime interlude. Almost twenty-five years later they meet again by chance. Set between 1950 and 1980, with a backward glance to the Second World War, this novel is a direct criticism of religious ideology, and of any belief system that crushes the human spirit by claiming a monopoly on truth and demanding adherence to its dogmas. It also depicts life as a series of mostly random occurrences. The novel notes the plight of the Irish emigrant forced to leave the land he thought he loved for another that does not love him, and the painful appraisal of what is lost or gained by such migration.
