Regina McBride grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico, but she spent part of her later life in Ireland and she has since mined that time to great effect in novels such as "The Land of Women." That novel (which was, fittingly enough, set in Ireland and Santa Fe) centered around Irish mythology and a young woman named Fiona whose relationship with her parents was, to say the least, complicated. In her latest novel, "The Marriage Bed," McBride takes the theme of parent-child relationships into even darker territory. It is a tragedy involving her parents which drives McBride's protagonist Deirdre O'Breen from the Great Blasket Island off the southwest coast of Ireland to Dublin. Deirdre is just 14 years old. She has lived her life on an isolated island but now finds herself living in a tumultuous city at the turn of the 20th century. McBride captures Deirdre's sense of dislocation wonderfully in this novel, which is filled with rich writing and illuminating details. Hoping to find a place for herself in Dublin, Deirdre goes to a convent school and plans to become a nun. It is there that Deirdre's life become intertwined with that of another young girl, Bairbre, as well as her determined, devout mother. Bairbre's mother is so driven, in fact, that she methodically plots to arrange a marriage between Deirdre and her son Manus, an architect with dreams of designing and planning Dublin's future. McBride has brought this young couple together by two forces beyond their control - parental tragedy and a pushy mother. Like Ireland itself, Manus and Deirdre face the question of whether or not they will move forward peacefully and happily, or instead will be haunted by the tragic past. McBride's prose seems, at times, excessive. However, she is a poet as well as a writer of fiction, and when she settles on a rich image she is able to call on a poet's skills to bring her words alive. All in all, "The Marriage Bed" is a challenging but satisfying work which explores distinctly Irish themes. ($13 / 289 pages / Touchstone Books)