Veronica, the eighth of the twelve Hegarty children, travels to England to collect the body of Liam, her immediately older brother, while the other surviving members of the family gather in Dublin for his funeral. But the title is misleading. What is being gathered together in this story is not primarily the various members of the Hegarty clan (although most of them make an appearance), but a rag-bag of childhood memories as Veronica struggles to make sense of her own life and Liam's in the context of family history. She makes this clear in the opening sentence: "I would like to write down what happened in my grandmother's house the summer I was eight or nine, but I am not sure if it really did happen." Or sort of clear; her doubts about the past are part of the point.