“Are we American?” my eldest asks across the dinner table, completely serious.

The question catches me off guard. I raise an eyebrow. “Of course.” At his age, I never thought about such things. I was like the other kids, and they were like me.

Or so it seemed.

Born in Libya to Irish parents, Richard arrived in America in the wake of the Six-Day War and grew up with his older brother in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., believing he was just another American kid.

After moving to Alaska, mounting discipline problems threatened to tear the family apart. The solution? Send the boys to Irish boarding school.

What began as an adventure to eleven-year-old Richard became a seven-year ordeal, as the harsh realities of boarding school, the violence of the Troubles, and a childhood divided between countries and cultures reshaped his understanding of family, identity, and belonging.

By the time Richard returned to America, he no longer knew where—or what—home was. For decades, he believed it was because of being sent away.

But a single question challenged everything he thought he understood about his childhood, his family, and the decision that shaped his life.

Part coming-of-age story, part search for identity, and part reckoning with memory, The Troubles follows one man’s attempt to separate truth from myth and finally make peace with the ghosts of the past.