Ruth Swain, 19, suffers from a strange undefined illness and lies in bed, in an attic room near the River Shannon in County Clare, where the skylight streams with rain. Surrounded by nearly 4,000 books inherited from her father, she is writing an unusual family history, seeking to understand the mystery of her poet father. His ancestors were “elsewhere people”, driven to live according to an “impossible standard” because only “God meets the standard”. But her mother’s role was to “redeem him from the place he kept pawning himself into”. As we find out later in the novel, Ruth is also mourning the loss of her twin brother. However, her text suffers from no self-pity, and is sprinkled with delightfully droll accounts of the village of Fa