Staff Pick
I was caught up in the narration from the outset, finding myself securely in the mind of the daughter. And then it shifted, and I was totally engaged in the mother's thoughts and memories. And so it flitted back and forth, circling around the lives of these women, all the while reflecting back to the famous poet grandfather and the generational trauma he caused. A seemingly simple book that accrues power incrementally. I loved it. Recommended By Marianne T, Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Nell McDaragh never knew her grandfather, the celebrated Irish poet Phil McDaragh. But his love poems seem to speak directly to her. Restless and wryly self-assured, at twenty-two Nell leaves her mother Carmel's orderly home to find her own voice as a writer (mostly online, ghost-blogging for an influencer) and to live a poetical life. As she chases obsessive love, damage, and transcendence, in Dublin and beyond, her grandfather's poetry seems to guide her home.
Nell's mother, Carmel McDaragh, knows the magic of her Daddo's poetry too well — the kind of magic that makes women in their nighties slip outside for a kiss and then elope, as her mother Terry had done. In his poems to Carmel, Phil envisions his daughter as a bright-eyed wren ascending in escape from his hand. But it is Phil who departs, abandoning his wife and two young daughters. Carmel struggles to reconcile "the poet" with the father whose desertion scars her life, along with that of her fiercely dutiful sister and their gentle, cancer-ridden mother. To distance herself from this betrayal, Carmel turns inward, raising Nell, her daughter, and one trusted love, alone.
The Wren, the Wren brings to life three generations of McDaragh women who must contend with inheritances — of poetic wonder and of abandonment by a man who is lauded in public and carelessly selfish at home. Their other, stronger inheritance is a sustaining love that is "more than a strand of DNA, but a rope thrown from the past, a fat twisted rope, full of blood." In sharp prose studded with crystalline poetry, Anne Enright masterfully braids a family story of longing, betrayal, and hope.
Review
"Sharp, sudden, mischievous, sublime — this is dazzling novel; a glorious multi-generational novel of tangled relationships, secret, bodies, sex. Nell must be one of the best young women I've read in recent Irish fiction." — Lucy Caldwell, author of These Days
Review
"These pages practically crackle with intelligence, compassion, and wit. Phil McDaragh is so real I almost googled him. The Wren, The Wren might just be Anne Enright's best yet." — Louise Kennedy, author of Trespasses
Review
"The Wren, The Wren is a magnificent novel. Anne Enright's stylistic brilliance seems to put the reader directly in touch with her characters and the rich territory of their lives. "— Sally Rooney, author of Beautiful World, Where Are You
About the Author
Anne Enright is author of seven novels, most recently Actress. She has been awarded the Man Booker Prize, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Irish Book Awards. She lives in Dublin.