Born Saoirse Whalen, the novel’s protagonist is forced to adopt the name of Sophie Whalen, her younger sister who died in infancy. Saoirse does so as she leaves behind infamy in her native Donaghadee for a new life in America.

Pretty, black-haired Saoirse grows up cheerfully enough as the youngest child and only surviving daughter of her loving parents. Her natural curiosity and aptitude for learning is especially encouraged by her father. Unusually for a girl in a poor, turn-of-the-century Irish fishing village, she stays in school until the age of 16. However, Saoirse’s academic progress is stalled following her father’s untimely death and her marriage to chauvinistic Colm McGough. When Colm’s violence puts an end to Saoirse’s dreams of becoming a mother, she is filled with a righteous vengeance—“a cold, hard rumbling that was lurking deep within me, like water just about to boil” (346). The feeling erupts into violence when she stuns Colm with an iron skillet, causing him to fall into water and drown. However, knowing that the patriarchal authorities will put Colm’s right to life over her own and her daughter’s, Saoirse has no choice but to obliterate her old self and go on the run under the name of her late younger sister, Sophie.