Jeannette Haien’s debut novel, The All of It (1986), is a compact and philosophical literary novella set in rural Ireland. The story centers on Father Declan de Loughry, a Catholic priest whose faith and understanding are challenged by the story of his parishioner, Enda Dennehy. Following the death of Kevin Dennehy, the man the community believed to be her husband, Enda reveals their lifelong secret that they were siblings who survived a traumatic childhood together and lived for decades under the pretense of marriage. Her narrative forces the priest to confront the complexities of human suffering and the moral codes people create to survive. The novel explores themes including The Limits of Catholicism Regarding Transgressive Relationships, The Power of Voicing Trauma, and Finding Inspiration in the Natural World.

An accomplished concert pianist, Haien published The All of It when she was in her sixties. The novel was met with critical acclaim and received the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Though it was Haien’s first book, she published only one other novel, Matters of Chance, in 1997. The All of It has enjoyed a lasting reputation, experiencing a resurgence in popularity after being reissued in 2011 with an admiring foreword by novelist Ann Patchett, which introduced the work to a new generation of readers.

This guide refers to the 2011 Harper Perennial edition.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide feature depictions of child abuse, sexual content, and illness or death.

Plot Summary

Father Declan de Loughry, a Catholic priest in his early sixties who has served the rural Irish parish of Roonatellin in County Mayo for five years, arranges a day of salmon fishing on the River Moy despite wretched conditions. The season is nearly over, the river is swollen and dirty from heavy rains, and the only available beat is the least desirable stretch, Number Four, with an inexperienced ghillie named Seamus O’Conner assigned to attend him. From the moment Father Declan arrives at the riverbank and begins casting, his mind refuses to settle on the fishing. Instead it circles obsessively around the events of the past several days and the extraordinary confession now in his keeping.

Four days earlier, a parishioner named Kevin Dennehy, on his deathbed, began to tell Father Declan something urgent about himself and the woman everyone in Roonatellin took to be his wife, Enda. Kevin managed only to say that there was a reason he and Enda could not marry and to beg the priest to swear he would stand by her, before a seizure silenced him permanently. After Kevin’s death, Enda pressed Father Declan to place a death notice in the district newspaper listing her as Kevin’s wife, exactly as a legitimately widowed woman named Catherine McPhillemy had done when her own husband died. Enda assured Declan that once he heard the full explanation he would understand, and that without the notice there would be no peace for her. Unable to resist her urgency, he paid for the notice out of his own pocket and had it printed.

That same evening, Enda refused to confess her story in the confessional but agreed to tell him the whole story in that moment. Declan reluctantly agreed, and Enda revealed that she and Kevin did not marry because they were brother and sister.

Enda then recounted the story of their shared childhood in an isolated stone house on the wild reaches of Donegal, 50 or 60 years before. Their mother had died in childbirth when Kevin was three and Enda two, and their father, unable to bear his grief, descended into an addiction to alcohol and abusive behavior. The children grew up in near-total isolation and performed all of the labor associated with rural living. Their father had a locked upstairs room that had been their parents’ bedroom; when Kevin was 12 and Enda 11, their father had them remove everything from the room for him to burn in the yard.

When Kevin was 16 and Enda 15, their father locked them in the upstairs room, left, and did not return. Kevin and Enda passed the first day making games, but night fell and he did not come. By the following dawn, after 36 hours without food or water in freezing cold, they had accepted they might die. In the extremity of cold, despair, and the certainty of death, Kevin covered her with himself for warmth and comfort, and the physical intimacy between them became sexual. Enda told the priest plainly that it happened “not as a sin” (52), since they were comforting each other.

Their father eventually returned, Kevin threatened him with an axe, and the two teenagers locked their father inside the house, allowing them to flee south at dawn. They made their way through Donegal Town, Sligo, Ballymote, and eventually to the coast, surviving on odd jobs Kevin picked up along the way until they reached the Roonah Valley. Along the way, Kevin fashioned Enda a makeshift wedding ring, and they allowed people to think they were married. In Roonatellin, they came upon a ruined cottage and presented themselves to the parish priest, Father Daniels, who gave them permission to stay in the cottage. Kevin found work, and the two of them began rebuilding the cottage.

Neighbors assumed Kevin and Enda were a married couple, but neither of them ever verbally confirmed their marriage. Enda explains that if people had known they were brother and sister, the community would have attempted to reorganize their lives. The pretense of marriage protected their privacy and freedom to live exactly as they chose.

Father Declan, absorbed by Enda’s telling during the wake, periodically mentioned that Enda and Kevin could have prevented the continuation of their sin by revealing the truth, even if it cost them their freedom. Enda grew cold and doubted that Declan understood the gravity of Enda and Kevin’s past. Declan demanded to know whether the sexual relationship between them had continued after Donegal, and Enda cried out in devastation that he could think such a thing of Kevin and herself, cursed his duty, and told him he had laid a wound on her. The mourners arrived, and Declan let them into the house, asking Enda’s forgiveness before leaving.

Back on the river at half-five, a sudden violent downpour drives Declan under the branches of a wych elm tree, where on a whim he walks to the bank of a cove and makes a final cast. Almost instantly a large salmon shows itself, and after a 35 minute fight, Declan lands a salmon weighing 24 pounds 10 ounces.

That evening, Father Declan finds the emptiness of the parish-house almost unbearable and thinks of getting a small terrier. He realizes the specific person he wants to share the day with is Enda. He drives to Enda’s home, finds her lamp lit, and sounds the horn twice. She comes running out, and he tells her about the salmon. She congratulates him and plans to gossip about his victory to the neighbors. He tells her there is no one else he wanted to tell about the salmon, and she replies that they are alike in their needs. She does not invite him in but invites him instead to come for tea on Monday, promising hot oatcakes and the full story of the catch, and she accepts a portion of the salmon. They say goodnight, Declan watches Enda go inside, and he drives away.