The book is divided into three sections: the childhood, middle age and older times of the girl, Lucy.

It starts during the Irish War of Independence, when Loyalist Protestant landowners caught in the battle between the IRA and the British army had their houses burned.

[2] The place is under martial law and Captain Gault is disturbed by young arsonists from the nearby village.

Her father returns after the Second World War, having spent the previous years in Italy and Switzerland, too late to salvage her happiness.

Lucy in old age sees people with phones to their ears and hears on the wireless about the Internet, and wonders what it is.

[10] ReviewofBooks said on the critics consensus, "It's gathered high praise from almost all reviewers, The Boston Globe says, "The Story of Lucy Gault is a novel blessed with sorrow and inevitability, its rueful beauty a requiem for an 'Ireland of the ruins' as well as for human folly and deliverance.