The novel follows Finn McCormack, who returns to his Irish hometown, Ballygall, from Boston to fulfill his late father’s two parting wishes—to be buried in the town graveyard and to reinstate a fourth-century wall around the town. In the latter, he is seemingly aided by Hugh O’Neill, aka The Toll Queen, a car toll mogul. The ensuing chaos of the wall’s construction inflames the town, irrevocably altering the lives of its inhabitants, including that of Finn’s mother, Maeve. When she reveals a shocking secret from her past and then sells their home and family business, Finn’s sense of identity and community is shattered. Meanwhile, Finn’s first love, Obee, returns from London to assist her Nigerian-born parents in The Battle for Ballygall. The wall will cut her housing estate out of the town—a move that many residents view as anti-immigrant. She carefully renews her relationship with Finn, who, repelled by The Toll Queen’s tactics, has reversed his opinion on the wall. As they organize the town in opposition and attempt to heal themselves from the ruptures of their shared past, Finn and Obee must also decide whether they will ultimately stay in Ballygall, “a town they once left so well.” At its core, the novel is about modern Ireland, immigration, emigration, and a young man’s reckoning with his family’s role in its history, past and future.
