The Trusting and the Maimed is a poignant and atmospheric collection of short stories set in mid-20th-century Dublin, where working-class individuals grapple with social pressures, moral dilemmas, and deep emotional suffering. Plunkett, drawing heavily on his own upbringing, crafts narratives filled with empathetic insight into themes like unintended pregnancy, religious guilt, childhood trauma, post-war disillusionment, and systemic poverty. Each story—ranging from the title tale of a young woman faced with unwanted pregnancy and betrayal to other accounts of shell-shocked veterans, schoolchildren in oppressive religious settings, and grieving widowers—reveals characters who are both “trusting” in their innocence and profoundly “maimed” by circumstance, reflecting Plunkett’s compassionate portrayal of human fragility within a complex social milieu.