An Irishman, a dreamer, a poet—Murph, like Whitman, sings lustily of himself and of everyone. He conjures the islands that have shaped him: Manhattan, his longtime home, and Inishmaan, off the Irish coast. He muses on Oona, his late wife of fiftysome years, and Greenberg, his late best friend. He embraces the living: his scolding, loving daughter and his grandson, a small and delicious replica of himself.

Then into his life comes Sarah, less than half his age and blind, who sees into his heart. Murph finds his querulous self capable of intimacy again. They are drawn to each other by a shared contemplation of joy, beauty, and the suffering world. Through Murph’s often extravagant behavior and observations, both hilarious and profound, we see the world in all its strange glory, equally beautiful and ridiculous.