Willie Ryan is an old man who arrives back in his home town in 'the great central plain of Ireland', having escaped from the insane asylum where he was wrongfully incarcerated, and unvisited, by his devout Catholic family for twenty-five years. The given reason for his commitment was an attack on his sister-in-law, Mary Ryan, wife of his brother Michael. The true reason: a homosexual affair with a hedonistic young man who introduced him to art, literature and music. When he returns to his family, Mary continues to insist on Willie's insanity. After all, didn't he refuse to go to Confession or to attend Mass during all his years in the asylum? Together with Father Mannix - who was complicit in 'putting away' Willie - she conspires to bring about Willie's reconciliation with the church. For Willie's enemies, nothing evil has happened as long as it is not seen to have happened. But through Willie's piercing vision, we see the truth - his brother Michael's grief and remorse; his nephew Chris's fear of freedom; and the perceptiveness of asylum nurse Halloran.When Willie knows he is about to die, he agrees to a private family Mass, setting the stage for a confrontation with Father Mannix - one which will pitch moral integrity against the 'petty bourgeois snobbishness, hypocrisies and pretensions' of the 'little grocer's republic' of 1950s Ireland.

Another of his novels, The Pilgrimage, and a biography, Something in the Head, are being reissued by The Lilliput Press in tandem with this book.