"Disillusioned with his marriage to the controlling Ursula, haunted by the death of his sister, and unsettled by the vandals threatening the security of his home, a young Dubliner, Stephen, moves to New York hoping to make a clean break.".

"He is quickly swept up in an affair with Holfy, a fiercely independent woman fifteen years his senior, but before long finds himself living a divided life, unable to sever his ties to Ursula, Dublin, and the past. As his obsessive, intensely erotic bond with Holfy begins to fray, Stephen's sense of dislocation intensifies, leaving him to face an unraveling identity and longing for a home that no longer seems to exist."--BOOK JACKET.