Coming of age in small-town Ireland in the years following World War II, Eilis Lacey is one among many of her generation who cannot find a job in the miserable economy. When an Irish priest from Brooklyn offers to sponsor Eilis to live and work in America, she decides she must go, leaving her fragile mother and her charismatic sister behind.

Eilis takes up her new life in a crowded Brooklyn boarding house, working in a department store on