

He then escaped to America, where he lived in New York City and became active in Irish-American politics. Meagher was an Irish revolutionary who was condemned to death but then exiled to Tasmania. With novelistic skill, Egan fashions a dizzying tableau of the life of his restless subject.

Those who have heard of Thomas Francis Meagher (1823–1867) will likely know him as a Union general in the Civil War, but Egan ( The Big Burn), National Book Award–winner for The Worst Hard Time, moves Meagher convincingly into the ranks of patriots of both the U.S.
