Set in Ireland and America, the twelve gems in Colum McCann's award-winning collection are tales of exile, loss, love, and displacement. The characters - oddballs and outcasts, misfits and travelers - are all in search of a way back home, or a way to leave it.<br/>The anorexic nun who ends her days in a Long Island convent hospital, the garrulous beautician who lays out the corpse of a loved one, the weathered boxing champ fond of stealing clothes from a New Orleans laundromat, and the silent Japanese wallpaperer who settles in a remote corner of Ireland - these quirky pilgrims set out to explore the mysteries of their lives. And they find redemption - of a sort - in the clear air of the Texas plains, the benign tolerance of San Francisco's sloping streets, or even in the memory of Yankee soldiers who once blew like fresh air through the hills of County Kildare.