In Houlihan’s Wake, a young Irishman goes to Playa Chisme, on the Pacific coast of Mexico, determined to die, and determined to do so in a beautiful setting. But can Houlihan’s death-wish do its worst in such a life-affirming place, where the lifeguards are adamant that nobody shall turn their massive party to celebrate a whole year without anyone drowning in Playa Chisme's lethal rip-tides into someone else’s pitiful wake?
Houlihan’s Wake is accompanied by further stories and poems set in “Playa Chisme” and elsewhere in the country to provide a rich array of Fragments of Mexico.