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Gathering (Paperback)

by Anne Enright (Author)

2.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)

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Product Details

Paperback: 260 pages
Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat; 1 edition (Sep 10 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0802170390
ISBN-13: 978-0802170392
Product Dimensions: 20.6 x 13.7 x 2 cm
Shipping Weight: 363 g

Average Customer Review: 2.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)

Amazon.ca Sales Rank: #16,570 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in these categories:
#10 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Irish
#23 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Women's Fiction > Domestic Life

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Product Description

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.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* The blessing and the curse of family bonds have been addressed by some of our best writers, perhaps never so movingly as by William Kennedy in his Albany cycle of novels. Now Irish novelist Enright, whose intense lyrical style recalls Kennedy's, gives full voice to another tale of familial agony: Veronica's grief in the wake of her wayward brother Liam's suicide. Past and present merge as Veronica recalls their childhood growing up in Dublin in a family of 14, with never enough money or enough attention from their overburdened parents. She's convinced it all went wrong when Liam was sexually abused by a family friend, and her recollections of that day alternate with sunnier ones of their endless roughhousing and joking. When Liam drowned himself, with a tide of "blood, sea water and whiskey" running in his veins, he took Veronica's sense of purpose with him. Inconsolable, and suffering from insomnia, she spends her evenings driving and writing, trying to come to terms with the fact that "someone you love is dead, and the world is full of people you don't." Enright's hypnotic prose turns her desperation into something fierce and beautiful. Wilkinson, Joanne

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Customer Reviews

12 Reviews

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(7)

Average Customer Review

2.2 out of 5 stars (12 customer reviews)

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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a complicated book, Dec 26 2007

By	Reviewing for dummies "Toto" - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

One that requires more than one reading with which to fully come to grips. There's a lot going on here, about family, about the ties that bind, about the fact we can never escape the past. Everyone will not like this book, it's too grim and rambling and unfocussed for that, but I did. The story, which is set in Dublin, revolves around Veronica Hegarty, a 30-something wife and mother, who has escaped the clutches of her huge Irish Catholic family She has eight siblings and suffers hardships when her brother, Liam, kills himself. Closest to him in age, Veronica is the one who must pick up the pieces and bring back his body from England, where he drowned himself off Brighton Beach.

The first-person narrative is told in a stream-of-consciousness manner from Veronica's perspective. She flits backwards and forwards in time, exploring her family's dark history. She goes as far back as her grandparent's generation as she tries to unravel the story. During the course of the book, which spans Liam's death through to his funeral, Veronica traces the history of the family. But through this we glimpse Veronica's obsessions and see how her personality has been slightly damaged by her rough-and-tumble crowded childhood. Her pain and her anguish is never expressed to the outside world (she cannot even communicate with her husband), but is buried deep inside where it finds expression in Veronica's self-loathing. If nothing else, The Gathering is a portrait of a lost woman coming to grips with her past, her present and her future.

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "All I have are stories", Jul 30 2008

By	Friederike Knabe (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

. . . writes Veronica, the narrator of this unusual family saga, in the opening pages, ... "night thoughts, the sudden convictions, that uncertainty spawns." It will be important for us, the readers, to keep this in mind as we get increasingly drawn into Anne Enright's award-winning novel. While it is a family saga of sorts, it is much more a psychological study of a woman in crisis. Written in a straightforward, sometimes witty, conversational tone which later may sometimes prove deceiving, Veronica's thoughts and ruminations move in apparently haphazard fashion from her childhood experiences in the 1960s to the present. The present being some months after the funeral of her brother which brought her together with the rest of the Hegarty clan.

Veronica's crisis centres on Liam, her favourite brother who has died in untoward circumstances. She wants to tell his story, yet finds it difficult to come to terms with who he has become since their intimate childhood years. Did his troubled life commence with an event she recalls observing when she was nine and he eleven at their gran's? Did it actually happen or is her memory playing tricks? Did something happen to her too at that time? In her reminiscences of that carefree long summer holiday with Liam and younger sister Kitty at their grandmother's, a dark cloud was hanging over them. Enright contrasts this special summer with the usual life in the Hegarty family: "Mammy" always pregnant, the father rarely seen around the increasingly large family. Poverty is hinted at in many ways, without being overplayed. Among Vee's shorter or longer introductions of her large family, Ada, the grandmother, stands out as the most important character. Veronica imagines her as a young girl of 18 in 1925, when Irish women had very little freedom to choose which way their life should go. Vee clearly feels drawn to her as she tries to lift the mystery of Ada's relationship to the two men in her life. While she remains a presence beyond her death, others, like the parents, pale to almost nothingness. "Sometimes I don't remember my mother. I look at her photograph and she escapes me."

Returning to that crucial time of Veronica's childhood quite often, Enright's ability to draw out her protagonist's uncertainty as to what actually happened and her emotional turmoil that accompanied the ambiguity of her recollections is exquisite. For Vee, the reverberations of the past appear to stack insurmountable obstacles in the way of her present life, in particular in her relationship to nice and kind husband Tom. Is a way out, a conclusion, possible?

In the end, "The Gathering" that Enright exposes the reader to is not primarily the physical coming together of the family for the funeral, as it is Vee's gathering of memories and reassessments of events and people of the past. The description of the wake, the interaction between the different Hegarty siblings, nonetheless, brings the diverse strands in the story together in a satisfying manner. [Friederike Knabe]

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20 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing read, Oct 24 2007

By	Irish Book gurl "Book gurl" (Toronto, ON Canada) - See all my reviews

I confess, i purchased this book as it won the Booker Prize and i have discovered authors such as Peter Carey and Ian McEwan. The Gathering was a very disappointing and frustrating read. The flitting back and forth through time was off-putting and i was tempted to put down the book several times. Joyce's Finnegans Wake was less frustrating to read. I felt neither empathy nor compassion for any of the characters and, though i continued until the end, i was left unsatisfied and wondered what the Booker Prize judges were thinking.

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Most recent customer reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars LACKING
HAVE JUST FINISHED THIS BOOK TO PRESENT AT BOOK GROUP. There is no doubt the writing is very skilled and I repect the right of the author to write what moves her at that moment,... Read more

Published 10 months ago by NTS book club B

2.0 out of 5 stars The gathering of dispersive thoughts
`The Gathering' happens because Liam Hegarty dies suddenly. Through the words of his beloved sister Veronica who collects his body and organizes the funeral, we learn the tale of... Read more

Published 12 months ago by I LOVE BOOKS

1.0 out of 5 stars Waste of time
Considering all the rave reviews and prizes this book has received, I was expecting great things when it was lent to me by a friend. I was in for a big disappointment! Read more

Published 14 months ago by Mlle Fantine

1.0 out of 5 stars Great for a university class, but not for the beach
This book is more suitable for a university class, but as something to bring with you on the beach, STAY AWAY. Long, difficult and pointless, I wouldn't recommend this book.

Published 14 months ago by F. Laforge