Three generations of Irish Americans struggle to make it in America in Donahue’s historical novel.

In the midst of the Great Famine in 1847 rural Ireland, families save to send their children to America in the hope of a better life. Stephen Callaghan receives an offer from an Irish immigrant in New York who wishes to employ the young man. Before Stephen leaves, he spends one night with his love, Biddy, promising to send for her as soon as he can afford it. Meanwhile, after her father is imprisoned, 9-year-old Peggy O’Rourke travels West on a “coffin ship,” one of the boats so-named for the enormous death tolls incurred during their transatlantic journeys. Neither Peggy’s sister nor her mother survive the trip, leaving Peggy completely alone in a new country. When Stephen arrives, his benefactor, congressman Matthew V. Flaherty, puts him to work building apartment buildings for his business, which benefits immigrants from Ireland. As the Callaghan lineage grows, the decisions made by the first generation play out in the lives of descendants Carney, James, William, Jim, Raymond, and Anna Callaghan. While the Callaghan family endures much tragedy, Donahue weaves in moments of joy and levity, keeping the novel from becoming too bleak. Carney Callaghan, Stephen and Biddy’s son, provides welcome comic relief throughout the narrative; in a conversation about his children, Carney says of one daughter, “I might ask my friend Reverend Jeremiah Dooze to baptize her agin. It dint work the first time.” The author deftly manages the large number of characters in the novel—only a few players feel slightly unrealized, including Peggy. While she has an engaging and empowering character arc, she disappears from the narrative by the end, which is especially disappointing after her intricate characterization in the novel’s first half. Still, Donahue impresses with this sweeping yarn about the Irish immigrant experience.

A compelling, often devastating Irish American family saga.