In Butte, Montana, a mining town filled with largely Irish immigrants, Tom Rourke survives by working as a photographer's assistant and writing love letters for illiterate men seeking wives back East. It is October 1891, and Tom senses a premonition in the cold night air: "[H]e felt the strangest thing, a thought almost beyond words, that the winter would have purpose for him yet."

Fate propels Tom: he sees it etched in the night air, in the window of his room, and in the approaching winter. As a central theme, fate permeates the novel, driving the plot and setting the characters on their path. Author Kevin Barry consistently revisits this idea, articulating it mainly through Tom, who is depressive, passionate, and cultured, but also through Polly, his co-protagonist and love interest.

The wheels of destiny begin turning when Tom, drunk and high on opium, has an encounter with a ...