Northern Ireland

The novel takes place almost entirely in Northern Ireland during the early 1970s, in the heart of the violent upheaval there known as the Troubles. The backdrop of political unrest is fundamental to the novel's themes and plot, as the turbulence created by these conditions leads to a number of difficult choices for Cushla and the other people around her while also serving as a kind of crucible for Kennedy's observations about the human condition. The circumstances create an atmosphere of suspicion and division that serve as natural conflicts between the novel's characters and that frustrate typical conventions of human relationships, creating a pressure cooker of class, religion, and gender dynamics.

The Lavery pub

The pub owned by the Laverys is an important setting throughout the novel because it brings the Irish and English worlds together, leading to interactions both rewarding and difficult. The Laverys are haunted...