This book centers on the lives of a young widow and her daughter in Irish Catholic Brooklyn in probably the early 20th century. It is a gentle story of their relationship as it is intertwined with the lives of nuns that look after the sick and poor in their neighborhood. It nicely illustrates how the the Catholic Church was a central part of everyone's lives and thinking in that culture and the benefits from that, as well as some of the disadvantages. The first problem is the inability to bury the father in the church grounds because his death was a suicide. His wife lives with the shame but is able to shield her daughter from it, partly because no one ever discussed it after the unmarked burial. One of the central themes, played out in small and large ways by many of the characters, is a rebellion of spirit against some of the strict doctrines of the church, many of which would not be such a problem in this day and age.