In this bawdy memoir, Irish author Aidan Higgins dissects the folie de grandeur of a Catholic family in County Kildare. He examines the mystery of growing up, his rearing on a run-down estate within the English Pale, the decline of a family fortune, and the wide world that he discovered in London and South Africa. He also digs up and rattles family skeletons, and reflects on the state of Ireland during and just after World War II.