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The Gathering (Man Booker Prize)
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780802170392
ISBN: 0802170390
Label: Grove Press, Black Cat
Manufacturer: Grove Press, Black Cat
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 272
Publication Date: September 10, 2007
Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat
Studio: Grove Press, Black Cat
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Editorial 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
Anne Enright is a dazzling writer of international stature and one of Ireland’s most singular voices. Now she delivers The Gathering, a moving, evocative portrait of a large Irish family and a shot of fresh blood into the Irish literary tradition, combining the lyricism of the old with the shock of the new. 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 her distinctive intelligence twists the world a fraction and gives it back to us in a new and unforgettable light. The Gathering is a daring, witty, and insightful family epic, clarified through Anne Enright’s unblinking eye. It is a novel about love and disappointment, about how memories warp and secrets fester, and how fate is written in the body, not in the stars.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Graceful & Imaginative
I'm not surprised that this book won the Booker Prize. Enright has a superior command of the language. She creates fluid yet surprising prose, moving between real and imagined events, past and present with astounding grace and skill. This book is a surreal meditation on family--mother love, sister love, craziness, memory, and in particular the way one generation impacts the next.
Rating:  - Self-indulgent and tedious
My mother gave me this book a few months ago.
*Mom: I can't believe I'm giving this book to my DAUGHTER, but I'm interested to see what you'll think of it.
Me: Why wouldn't you give it to me?
Mom: It's uh... There's a lot of uh... Well, just read it and you'll see.
I took this to mean it has a lot of sex in it.
So, it sat on my shelf for a while, because I had a few other books in the queue. Honestly, I love a good sprawling family novel, but ... Read More
Rating: - Hidden in the Past
The Gathering tells the story of Veronica Hegarty, lost in the secrecy of her brother Liam's sudden suicide. As a result of her brother's death, she's forced to deal with the issues of her very large Irish family, her many issues with men and sex, her past, and her future. In the wake of Liam's death she explores her complicated relationship with her late brother by diving into her family's past. Reading the exposing portrayal I felt like an intruder. It seemed that Veronica's self reflective ... Read More
Rating:  - All men are bookies ...
What do you do with a book about a dysfunctional family and the penumbra of bizarre characters surrounding it, when the narrator concludes that all men are bookies and all women are whores? I thought about putting it down, but I kept reading. All the way to the dysfunctional ending. From the narrator, a middle-aged woman with an obsession concerning male genitalia, to the fastidious grandmother (a former whore) whose prim order captures the narrator's imagination as a child, to the grandmother's rejected ... Read More
Rating: - The image on the veil
The narrator, Veronica, gathers the broken pieces of her life, her memory, and her family in this uncomfortably honest piece of writing. The reader must dance on shifting emotional sands as the narrator plays with remembered and imagined stories, allowing uncertainty full rein. Her sentences resemble splinters - shards of consonants, cultural detritus, and thrusts at truth that lodge under the skin, annoying you until you can pull them out. Sometimes I just wanted to chuck the book away in frustration - other ... Read More
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