Summary

Chapter 3 first introduces Nan Mahon and her family. Brian, her father, drinks heavily and is often verbally abusive to her mother, Emily, who has high hopes that her beautiful daughter will have everything she never had. Nan has always been supportive of her mother, including helping her overcome Brian's objections to her getting a job, and she now enjoys her job in a hotel shop. Nan is very successful at manipulating her father and consequently gets almost anything she wants, including a guaranteed allowance when she begins her studies at the University College. Meanwhile, in the Dun Loaghaire section of Dublin, Kit Hegarty takes student boarders in her large house to make ends meet since her husband abandoned her years earlier, and she too is preparing to send her only son, Frank, off to the university. She is excited about his future, but...