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The Gathering
by Anne Enright
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About This Book
ISBN13: 9780802170392 |
Only 2 left in stock at $9.50!
Awards
Winner of the 2007 Man Booker Prize
Winner of the 2008 Irish Book Award for Best Novel
Winner of the 2008 Irish Book Award for Best Novel
Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments:
The new novel from one of Ireland's most prominent voices, The Gathering is an extraordinary anatomization of a family confronting the ghosts of its history.
A dazzling writer of international stature, Anne Enright is one of Ireland's most singular voices. Now she delivers The Gathering, a return to an intimate canvas and a moving, evocative portrait of a large Irish family haunted by the past.
The nine surviving children of the Hegarty clan are gathering in Dublin for the wake of their wayward brother, Liam, drowned in the sea. His sister, Veronica, collects the body and keeps the dead man company, guarding the secret she shares with him — something that happened in their grandmother's house in the winter of 1968. As Enright traces the line of betrayal and redemption through three generations, she shows how memories warp and secrets fester. The Gathering is a family epic, clarified through Anne Enright's unblinking eye. This is a novel about love and disappointment, about how fate is written in the body, not in the stars.
The Gathering sends fresh blood through the Irish literary tradition, combining the lyricism of the old with the shock of the new. As in all of Anne Enright's work, this is a book of daring, wit, and insight, her distinctive intelligence twisting the world a fraction and giving it back to us in a new and unforgettable light.
Review:
"'In the taut latest from Enright (What Are You Like?), middle-aged Veronica Hegarty, the middle child in an Irish-Catholic family of nine, traces the aftermath of a tragedy that has claimed the life of rebellious elder brother Liam. As Veronica travels to London to bring Liam's body back to Dublin, her deep-seated resentment toward her overly passive mother and her dissatisfaction with her husband and children come to the fore. Tempers flare as the family assembles for Liam's wake, and a secret Veronica has concealed since childhood comes to light. Enright skillfully avoids sentimentality as she explores Veronica's past and her complicated relationship with Liam. She also bracingly imagines the life of Veronica's strong-willed grandmother, Ada. A melancholic love and rage bubbles just beneath the surface of this Dublin clan, and Enright explores it unflinchingly." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
Review:
"There is something livid and much that is stunning about 'The Gathering,' which deservedly won this year's Man Booker Prize. Anger brushes off every page, a species of rage that aches to confront silence and speak truth, at last. The book's narrative tone echoes Joan Didion's furious, cool grief, but the richest comparison may be with James Joyce's 'Dubliners,' of which the author, always his own..." Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review)
Review:
"Anne Enright's style is as sharp and brilliant as Joan Didion's; the scope of her understanding is as wide as Alice Munro's; her sympathy for her characters is as tender and subtle as Alice McDermott's; her vision of Ireland is as brave and original as Edna O'Brien's. The Gathering is her best book." Colm Toibin, author of The Master and Mothers and Sons
Review:
"In the supercharged beauty of her oddly brittle, spiky sentences, you hear the cadences of the incomparable Don DeLillo....The penetrating exploration of domestic relationships, especially among women, calls to mind...Anne Tyler." Newsday
Review:
"Delivers with sharp wit and a huge heart." Elle
Review:
"A dreamy, melancholy swirl of a story, wise about the bonds and burdens linking children to each other and their grown selves." Kirkus Reviews
Review:
"While readers won't be drawn to the characters, anyone who perseveres will find a story of harsh redemption and of a future found in a child's blue eyes." Library Journal
About the Author
Anne Enright's work has appeared in The Paris Review, Harper's, The New Yorker, and The Penguin Book of Irish Fiction.
What Our Readers Are Saying
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Average customer rating based on 4 comments:
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Bianca, December 10, 2007 (view all comments by Bianca)
The family described by Enright is problematic, hate-love relationships that exist in many families, well hidden in the past, but more and more spoken off openly in modern times. Under Emrightâs talented pen the characters come easily to life.
What bothered me is the wide use of vulgarities, a too extensive use of words like "fucking" and "piss", not always needed in the text, and which make one wander if Enright has succumbed to the modern trend of feeling the need to shock.
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StephenWright, November 27, 2007 (view all comments by StephenWright)
This is a complicated book, one that requires more than one reading with which to fully come to grips. There's a lot going on here, about family, about the ties that bind, about the fact we can never escape the past. Everyone will not like this book, it's too grim and rambling and unfocussed for that, but I did. The story, which is set in Dublin, revolves around Veronica Hegarty, a 30-something wife and mother, who has escaped the clutches of her huge Irish Catholic family She has eight siblings and suffers hardships when her brother, Liam, kills himself. Closest to him in age, Veronica is the one who must pick up the pieces and bring back his body from England, where he drowned himself off Brighton Beach.
The first-person narrative is told in a stream-of-consciousness manner from Veronica's perspective. She flits backwards and forwards in time, exploring her family's dark history. She goes as far back as her grandparent's generation as she tries to unravel the story. During the course of the book, which spans Liam's death through to his funeral, Veronica traces the history of the family. But through this we glimpse Veronica's obsessions and see how her personality has been slightly damaged by her rough-and-tumble crowded childhood. Her pain and her anguish is never expressed to the outside world (she cannot even communicate with her husband), but is buried deep inside where it finds expression in Veronica's self-loathing. If nothing else, The Gathering is a portrait of a lost woman coming to grips with her past, her present and her future!!! I would also recommend, if you missed reading TINO GEORGIOU'S masterpiece--THE FATES, go and read it. With fascinating and brilliantly created characters in `THE FATES' coupled with two intertwining plots makes for a completely enjoyable and page-turning read.
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madeline support, October 23, 2007 (view all comments by madeline support)
well since she "out" the missing madeline girl I am going to tell everyone not to buy this book. She doesn't care that a 4-year old is missing in hands of a stranger.But she has rights to say something bad about them.I will never buy this book, and I am embrass for the Irish which I am, for her to be talking like this join me and soon hundreds,to not read and support her cruel intentions!!!
View all 4 comments
Product Details
- ISBN:
- 9780802170392
- Author:
- Publisher:
- Black Cat
- Author:
- Subject:
- Literary
- Subject:
- Family
- Subject:
- Ireland
- Publication Date:
- September 2007
- Binding:
- Paperback
- Language:
- English
- Pages:
- 260
- Dimensions:
- 828x545x68 68
