Judy is an eloquent thinker and her long form expressions of loneliness make this novel so powerful and sad. Judy is an Irish Catholic in Belfast. Her absolute abhorrence toward the Protestants is not uncommon in her community. She gives piano lessons and teaches stitchery, but she is always distracted by her loneliness and sexual frustration, not to mention the meaninglessness of her life without children.
She moves to Mrs. Henry Rice's boarding house. That woman is incredibly judgmental as well, and she mistreats her guests with stingy hospitality. Mrs. Rice coddles her son Bernie who is a talented poet, but he's completely restricted from real adulthood by his obvious Oedipal complex. Bernie doesn't feel the loneliness that his mother feels, because he is hooking up with the teenage maid. Mrs. Rice's brother James Madden is intriguing to Judy for his stories of New York. She can't help but pretend that they will be lovers. She fantasizes that they will move to America and be married and she will finally change her name. She notices his flaws but doesn't take them seriously.
Unfortunately, loneliness is not the only battle Judy is fighting. She has become addicted to whiskey and she often drinks to access. She often drinks exorbitant amounts, and given her petite frame, she often risks her health and blacks out drunk. Her landladies help fill in the gaps about her drunken stupors; it seems she screams and sings all day long, or all night long until she passes out. She can't teach anymore because she is so riddled by her addiction. She is bottoming out financially and emotionally. When she wants advice, her conversation with the minister Father Quigley are hurtful instead of helpful.
Madden returns Judy's interests because he believes she must be wealthy. He wants her to invest in his dream of opening a New York Style burger joint in Belfast. Their relationship is built on false pretenses. Judy often embarrasses herself in public, and at the O'Neill house. The story ends with an ambiguous and tenuous picture of the new couple, together on false pretense, and now bound to discover that they are destitute.
