Carmel had been alone all her life. The baby knew this. They looked at each other, and all of time was there.

The baby knew how vast her mother's loneliness had been.

Nell is a young woman with adventure on her mind. As she sets out into the world, she finds her family history hard to escape.

For her mother, Carmel, Nell’s leaving home opens a space in her heart, where the turmoil of a lifetime begins to churn. Over them both falls the long shadow of Carmel’s famous father, an Irish poet of beautiful words and brutal actions. From our greatest chronicler of family life, The Wren, The Wren is a story of the love that can unite us, and the individual acts that threaten this vital bond.