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Anne Enright

The Gathering: A Novel (Booker Prize Winner) Hardcover – November 28, 2007

by Anne Enright (Author)

800 ratings

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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. As in all Enright’s work, her distinctive intelligence twists the world a fraction, and gives it back to us in a new and unforgettable light.

Print length

272 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Grove Press
Publication date

November 28, 2007
Dimensions

5.75 x 0.75 x 8.5 inches
ISBN-10

0802118739
ISBN-13

978-0802118738
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Stunning…The book’s narrative tone echoes Joan Didion’s furious, cool grief, but the richest comparison may be with James Joyce’s 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 Enright’s fiction is jet dark—but how it glitters.” –The New York Times Book Review

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Grove Press; First Edition (November 28, 2007)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0802118739
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0802118738
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.75 x 0.75 x 8.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,651,194 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #29,860 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction
- #32,730 in Family Life Fiction (Books)
- #83,811 in Literary Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
800 ratings

About the author

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Anne Enright

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Anne Teresa Enright FRSL (born 11 October 1962) is an Irish author. She has published novels, short stories, essays, and one non-fiction book. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, her novel The Gathering won the 2007 Man Booker Prize. She has also won the 1991 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the 2001 Encore Award and the 2008 Irish Novel of the Year.

Before winning the Man Booker Prize, Enright had a low profile in Ireland and the United Kingdom, although her books were favourably reviewed and widely praised. Her writing explores themes such as family relationships, love and sex, Ireland's difficult past and its modern zeitgeist.

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Hpschaefer (Own work) [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Customer reviews

5 star		37%
4 star		22%
3 star		17%
2 star		13%
1 star		12%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Jane Wiseman

Kind of drab

Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2019

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I liked the background in the Ireland of the 50s-90s and even earlier. The characters were pretty depressing, though. Of course, the novel is about depression and grief, and a character doesn’t have to be likable to be a great character, but I never could really empathize with the protagonist, and that’s what the novel seemed to be asking me to do. It was never clear whether some incident in the past had actually happened, or whether this character was imagining that’s how it had to have happened, or whether it was an outright product of her distraught imagination, so when we learn the most important thing we need to know about the death of her brother, what do we know? Maybe that was supposed to be the whole point—that you never can untangle the past—but by the end, I didn’t care much.

25 people found this helpful

Helpful

Extraordinary, Lyrical Writing, but a Dark and Desolate Story That Is Just So Very Sad

Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2020

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Oh, this book is dark. Very, very dark. It is about dying and grief—grief in the myriad ways that the deaths of those we love bruise the human psyche. Adding to the complexity of the story, the death in question is a suicide, which means the "why" will never be answered and that question will forever niggle in the hearts of those left to pick up the pieces.

The story, which takes place primarily in a small town outside Dublin, Ireland, is narrated by 39-year-old Veronica, who has just learned that her beloved brother, Liam, who was a scant 11 months older than she, committed suicide by walking into the sea with stones in his pocket. Veronica and Liam are two of 12 children in a troubled and dysfunctional Irish family—so troubled that at one point in their childhoods, Veronica, Liam, and their younger sister Kitty were sent to live with their grandmother for a year. It was during that time that something horrific happened to Liam, which most likely leads to his subsequent alcoholism and eventual suicide. But that is only the surface of the story. It is Veronica's colorful and often bizarre memories, including many about her grandparents that she freely admits she makes up as a way to comfort herself, as well as her intense grief for Liam's life and death that is the crux of this 2007 Man Booker Award-winning novel by Anne Enright.

This is a story about the indelible ties of family, the heartbreak of death and the forever separation it causes, the healing power as well as the shame and futility of sex, the inherent wounds of old secrets, the ongoing scourge of abuse, and most of all how these all merge together like modeling clay to shape and form us into our very selves.

While the writing is extraordinary with some sentences so lyrical that they demand to be read over again, the story is just so incredibly sad and desolate I found it difficult to keep reading at times.

14 people found this helpful

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A SLOG THROUGH A BOG OF PRETENTIOUS TWADDLE…

Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2021

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I confess that, while I did not hate it, I did not like this book at all. I did not like the writing style, finding it neither lyrical nor poetic but, rather, self-indulgent twaddle. This story about a large, dysfunctional Irish family that is grieving for one of its own, dead by his own hand, left me unmoved and uninterested. This is anathema for any book

The dark secret that binds two of them together is parceled out in a most parsimonious and convoluted manner. Though shocking, the characters, especially the narrator, are all so unlikable that one has ceased to care by the time the big reveal rolls around. I find it hard to believe that this pretentious bit of palaver was the recipient of the Man Booker Prize in 2007.

4 people found this helpful

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Anna Bates

It's about abuse

Reviewed in the United States on February 25, 2019

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This is an excellent read. Spoiler alert though -- it is about sexual abuse of children, and the wide-reaching impact that abuse had on an entire family and community. There are many themes -- literary, psychological and cultural. For me, though, the deeply dangled web wrought by sexual abuse -- the ruined lives, the alcoholism and the deaths caused by it, are at the heart of the novel. The narrator has memories, some real and some false, that she struggles with to figure out why her brother committed suicide. I came away feeling as though I knew that family -- all its members -- and wished I didn't. I classify it as horror. It even has ghosts in it! And the story unwinds in a truly terrifying manner.

8 people found this helpful

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Jo in Camarillo

No Plot, All Pondering

Reviewed in the United States on January 28, 2022

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I found the author's writing lyrical and original. Her descriptions of sex and the sexual anatomy are unique and often humorous. In spite of those pluses, I did not very much enjoy the novel. I wanted a clarification, at some point, of which events actually happened and which were in her imagination. I do understand that the writer aimed to illustrate the unreliability of memory, especially memories from childhood; but to leave unclear the main concern of the "story" (no real plotline) - what indeed occurred between Liam and Lambert - is, to me, a copout and not fair to the reader. I agree with other comments that, overall, family members were not fleshed out - just a bunch of names - and therefore of no particular interest. Victoria's relationship with her husband remained a mystery. Seems he worked a lot and maybe cheated on her, that's about all I know beyond Victoria's dissatisfaction with him. To me, the writer went out of her way to be too cagey about facts that mattered, focusing instead on creating the fuzziness of memory - which left this reader unsatisfied. Although I did stick with it and read the whole book, which means it held my attention - mostly waiting for the big reveal, which never happened.

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Top reviews from other countries

Jude

Vulgar in places

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 17, 2020

Verified Purchase

Why do these award-winning authors think it is OK to take a reader down with the crudeness, right into the world where everything, simply everything, boils down to the body, bodily functions and the most unsavoury sex? Where is the beauty of writing in that? Definitely won't be reading this author again, and I am just extremely annoyed I bought this horrid book. I think the author needs to address her personal, sexual, issues. Maybe then she will be able to write a compelling story. Admittedly, as the story went on, the vile descriptions featured a bit less in there, but by that point, I felt too dismayed to continue reading.

5 people found this helpful

Kindle Customer

Well Yes...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 26, 2015

Verified Purchase

Sometimes deeply thoughtful, always truthful, frequently very funny, I know these people, we have the same heartbeat. I wish it weren't so bleak, I treasure the moments of humanity, but recognise the fragile, hopeless, dysfunction. I am a grandchild of such a large Irish family, and the generations before. The shoes are in place before the child begins to walk. All are loved, theoretically, some more than others. The differences are sharp and vicious. The stories of favouritism , preference, alliance and cliques uncomfortable. The longing for recognition and simple love as an individual, painful. I grew up thinking that a big loving family was exotic and magnificent. I learned, as I grew older, that they were all terribly alone, and that alliances were made and broken, over and over. Loved this book for something I can see as true.

27 people found this helpful

Ms watson

Could t put this book down.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 3, 2018

Verified Purchase

I enjoyed this book very much. It would be wrong to say that it's an easy read because there are parts which are thought provoking and others that are disturbing but her words flow. Entpright speaks of family relationships, always difficult, child abuse and dementia. She speaks of perceptions of past life and how memory is not always correct. Her writing is vivid and inciteful.

5 people found this helpful

jackjustreading

Siblings

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 10, 2018

Verified Purchase

Anyone who comes from an Irish family will know exactly what Ann Enright means about a funeral for a sibling. Veronica trying to hold everything together. The roles we all play within our childhood that stay with us.

6 people found this helpful

HELEN E BELCHER

Wonderful

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 21, 2016

Verified Purchase

I thought this book was amazing .Couldnt put down .Beautiful prose .Fascinating story line .Just my cup of tea .Just about to download another of her books .I feel at a loss because I've finished the book .

11 people found this helpful

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