Synopses & Reviews
Review
Stunning
The books narrative tone echoes Joan Didions furious, cool grief, but the richest comparison may be with James Joyces Dubliners.” The Washington Post
Entrancing, unflinching, and insightful. The Gathering is a haunting look at a broken family stifled by generations of hurt and disappointment, struggling to make peace with the irreparable.”Entertainment Weekly
Enright has written a wonderfully elegant and unsparing novel that takes the old Irish subjects of family dysfunction and the vagaries of memory into territory made fresh by an objectivity so precise it seems almost loving.
stunning control and flawless eye.” Los Angeles Times
An unflinching look at a grieving family
[a] very readable and satisfying novel.” Sir Howard Davies, Chair of Judges for the Man Booker Prize
[Enright] delivers with sharp wit and a huge heart.” Elle
Reckless intelligence, savage humor, slow revelation, no consolation: Ann Enrights fiction is jet darkbut how it glitters.” The New York Times Book Review
Synopsis
A dazzling writer of international stature, Anne Enright is one of Irelands 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 himsomething that happened in their grandmothers 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. As in all Enrights work, her distinctive intelligence twists the world a fraction, and gives it back to us in a new and unforgettable light.