The Gathering (Man Booker Prize) (Paperback)

~ (Author) "I WOULD LIKE to write down what happened in my grandmother's house the summer I was eight or nine, but I am not sure if..." (more)
Key Phrases: Michael Weiss, Lamb Nugent, Ada Merriman (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Significant Seven, November 2007: Pretty early on in The Gathering you realize that in her lingering portrait of the Hegarty clan (and this isn't hyperbole--they are a family of 12), Irish novelist Anne Enright will wrestle with all the giant literary tropes that have come before her. Family, of course, is the big one, but with equal intensity she explores death and dying, the sea and its siren song, sex, shame, secrecy, unreliable memories, madness, "the drink," and--always in the shadows--England. That said, it's not like any other novel about the Irish that I've read. The story of the Hegartys is indeed bleak, and hard, but it surges with tenderness and eloquent thought which, in the end, are the very things that help this family (or at least her narrator Veronica) survive. Through her eyes, and in Enright's skillful imagination, those small turning-point moments of life that we all know in some form or another--a petty fight, a careless word, an event witnessed--come together in an unshakeable vision of how you become the person you are. --Anne Bartholomew

From Publishers Weekly

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. (Sept.)
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Product Details

• Paperback: 260 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat (September 10, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802170390
• ISBN-13: 978-0802170392
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (150 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #34,103 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

171 of 182 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Uneven, February 23, 2008

By	hydrophilic "hydrophilic" (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews

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The Booker prize is a strange beast. The books that make it to the short list are usually excellent, yet somehow the worst of those always gets chosen.

I expected to loveloveLOVE this book. I adore books about multi-generational family dysfunction, and I'm a total sucker for evocative locales. This book covers a large Irish family from the 1920s to the current day. The plot is driven by funeral arrangements for the family's black sheep, who has committed suicide. The writing is lovely. It is almost impossible for me to dislike a book that contains so many fascinating elements. Sadly, however, "The Gathering" is that book.

This is not to say the it's a total loss. What Enright can do, she does well. For instance, she perfectly captures the strange and malleable thing that is childhood memory. I found myself nodding along as the main character, Veronica, describes her grandparent's house and various members of the extended family through eight-year-old eyes. Enright clearly wants to convey the uncertainty of memory and she succeeds. Veronica vividly remembers events that may or may not have occurred, or perhaps involved her siblings rather than herself. Additionally, her prose is beautiful. You'll be struck more than once by a sentence that's horrible, gorgeous, brilliant, and despairing all at once.

At the same time, I agree with all the criticisms levelled here. The book jumps haphazardly from the present to the past, and if that wasn't bad enough, it's often unclear whether it's all a figment of Veronica's imagination. I think Enright wanted to intensify the sense of uncertainty around the stories we tell to make sense of our family history. She uses a heavy hand, and the end result is a confused mess.

This mess is most painful when it comes to Veronica's relationship with her husband. They are on the verge of divorce, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was wrong. Apparently her husband works a highly competitive field, and is unsatisfied. Wow, who knew THAT could happen? Or maybe her husband has cheated on her. It's hard to tell when Veronica states that her husband stays with her because he hates her. Yes, that might seem strange to the average reader, but that's before you learn that he, like all men, hates her because he doesn't want to lose control during orgasm.

This leads me to another point, one I was surprised to see no mention of: the narrator deeply, profoundly despises men. It's so pointed that I thought perhaps Enright wanted the reader to assume that Veronica was sexually abused, though it's not explicitly described. The generalizations about men as sex starved, narcissistic monsters come early and often. I'm not sure if just the narrator is bitter, or if perhaps the author is as well.

Additionally, I have to agree that the book is often self-indulgent and overwrought. If you're looking frequent and unflattering descriptions of genetalia, then this is the book for you. The romantic relationships generally start with people falling in love, or life-long lust, at first glance. Additionally, Veronica emphasizes over and over the haunting, stunning, heart breakingly blue eyes all the children have. Is this a serious work of literature, or a romance novel?

Even the writing, the strongest point in the book stumbles more than once. The first time Veronica describes a family member as "human meat", I was shocked and enthralled. Unfortunately, this metaphor loses some power after half a dozen uses.

Finally, I may be jaded, but this family didn't seem all that dysfunctional. There's tragedy, but when you're describing several dozen people's lives, what are the odds that every single one is happy and normal? Isn't that just life? Of course it's painful for the people involved, but I'm not sure that Enright realizes that pain, though it feels special when it happens to you, is quite ordinary.

I'll probably try another one of Enright's books, but overall, this one was not worth the effort.

40 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A mixed bag..., December 11, 2007

By	Sheetal Bahl (New Delhi, India) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I read a number of reviews on this book before writing this, and found something in each one to agree. I think if you pick one review each across the 1-5 stars and average out across all of them, you'll get a fair assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of this book. What I am going to try and do thus is present a balanced review, which pretty much represents my "average feeling" about the book.

Firstly, let me very briefly summarize the plot: the book revolves around the life of one of the nine surviving children of an Irish family, her reminiscences (real and imaginary) of her life and those of her family, and in particular her recently deceased brother. The "dysfunctional family story" which has been much bandied by a number of people is not strictly true, because this is really the woman's story, with the family naturally taking a prominent position given their size and range of "experiences".

The positives first then: Enright really does seem to have a "fresh" style of writing - I got hooked into the book right away, and read the first third at one quick go. Very surprisingly though, the freshness goes stale very quickly, and I found it genuinely tedious to go through the rest of the book. But we were talking of positives here, so let's get back there: the book is littered with some stylistic gems, such as the one quoted by another reviewer here: "All our parents were mad in those days. There was something about just the smell of us growing up that drove them completely insane." Enright, when she chooses to, can create really well defined characters, such as the protagonist, whose nuances - physical, mental, and emotional, are beautifully unveiled through her thoughts and actions.

The negatives: above all, Enright has no ability to use the non-linear narrative style to her advantage. On the contrary, it severely detracts from the book, making it a rather complex and painful read. A conscious or unconscious, but negative either way, fallout of this structure was that the book's dramatic arc was entirely absent - it just didn't feel like a build-up to something, instead remaining at a near constant sort of intensity (which is high largely) throughout. This might not bother other readers, but it really takes away a lot for me, because I like to and want to look forward to something - something to keep me turning the pages. On her style, while there were a number of gems in the book, there were as many, or maybe more occasions when the line was crossed and the prose became completely outlandish and pretentious. And finally, while the protagonist's character was very well detailed, almost all others were little more than silhouettes, leaving too much to the imagination, which was not a positive in this case given all the clutter that Enright was creating in the book.

Overall, I felt disappointed with the book, but I don't think I will give up on the author - yet. This book reminded me of all the mediocrities churned out by Rushdie, because I have read each one partly for the sake of the few gems which I know I can be assured of, but more importantly in the hope that there might just be another "Midnight's Children" between the covers. I sense that Enright's masterpiece might come too, and I look forward to reading that someday.

49 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars .. of relatives, reminiscences, and regrets .., May 8, 2008

By	J. Cameron-Smith "Expect the Unexpected" (ACT, Australia) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Gathering: A Novel (Hardcover)

The nine surviving Hegarty siblings gather together in the family home in Dublin for the wake of their brother Liam. In the observance of a life now ended, Liam's sister Veronica (our narrator) recalls the past - both real and perhaps imagined - to try to understand the why and the how of Liam's life and death.

There are a number of different layers to this story and, although I read it in two sittings, I'll be rereading it to explore aspects I simply observed without necessarily understanding. The beauty of Ms Enright's prose is that you don't need to fully absorb the plot in order to undertake the journey. I found myself stepping outside the story simply to admire the language, and then hastening back inside again to keep up with the action. This is a story you can read quickly: the life and death of Liam; Veronica's observational angst; the likeable and less likeable family members are each cleanly (if not always clearly) presented.

There is more than one story in this novel, and if I tell you which one I read it may well detract from your own reading pleasure. My advice to intending readers is to approach this book as you would any large family: what you see on first acquaintance is not necessarily all there is.

I hope you enjoy the novel as much as I did.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith