The Gathering

by Anne Enright (2007)

The Gathering is 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.

About the author

Anne Enright is a Booker Prize-winning Irish author. She has published essays,

short stories, a non-fiction book and four novels. Before her novel The

Gathering won the 2007 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.

Enright won an international scholarship to Lester Pearson United World College

of the Pacific in Victoria, British Columbia, where she studied for an International

Baccalaureate for two years. She received an English and philosophy degree

from Trinity College Dublin. She began writing in earnest when her family gave

her an electric typewriter for her 21st birthday. She won a scholarship to the

University of East Anglia's Creative Writing Course, where she was taught by

Angela Carter and Malcolm Bradbury and earned an M.A.

Enright was a television producer and director for RTE in Dublin for six years.

She was a producer for the ground-breaking RTE programme Nighthawks for

four years. She then worked in children's programming for two years and wrote

at the weekends. The Portable Virgin, a collection of her short stories, was

published in 1991. The Portable Virgin won the 1991 Rooney Prize for Irish

Literature. Enright began writing full-time in 1993.

Enright's first novel, The Wig My Father Wore, was published in 1995. The book

explores themes such as love, motherhood, Roman Catholicism, and sex. The

narrator of the novel is Grace, who lives in Dublin and works for a tacky game

show. Her father wears a wig that cannot be spoken of in front of him. An angel

called Stephen who committed suicide in 1934 and has come back to earth to

guide lost souls moves into Grace's home and she falls in love with him.

Enright's next novel, What Are You Like? (2000), is about twin girls called Marie

and Maria who are separated at birth and raised apart from each other in Dublin

and London. It looks at tensions and ironies between family members. It was

short-listed in the novel category of the Whitbread Awards.

The Pleasure of Eliza Lynch (2002) is a fictionalised account of the life of Eliza

Lynch, an Irish woman who was the consort of Paraguayan president Francisco

Solano López and became Paraguay's most powerful woman in the 19th century.

Her book Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood (2004) is a collection of

candid and humorous essays about childbirth and motherhood. Enright's fourth

novel,The Gathering, was published in 2007, and The Forgotten Waltz in 2011.

Enright's writings have appeared in several magazines, including The New

Yorker, Paris Review,Granta, London Review of Books, Dublin Review, and

the Irish Times. She was once a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4, and now

reviews for the Guardian and RTE. The 4 October 2007 issue of the London

Review of Books published her essay, "Disliking the McCanns", about Kate and

Gerry McCann, the British parents of three-year-old Madeleine McCann, who

disappeared in suspicious circumstances while on holiday in Portugal in May

2007. The essay was criticized by some journalists.

Enright won the Davy Byrne's Irish Writing Award for 2004. She also won the

Royal Society of Authors Encore Prize.On 16 October 2007 Enright was awarded

the Man Booker Prize, which included a cash award of £50,000, for The

Gathering.

Enright lives in Bray, County Wicklow. She is married to Martin Murphy, who is

director of the Pavilion Theatre in Dun Laoghaire. They have two children.

Other interesting information: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/apr/28/featuresreviews.guardianreview17 http://www.believermag.com/issues/201401/?read=interview_enright Questions and topics for discussion:

1. At the very beginning of the novel, the narrator, Veronica, states that she is

setting out to “bear witness to an uncertain event” from her

childhood. Consider the nature of truth, and the ways in which it is possible

or impossible to reach the truth in remembering stories from our childhood.

2. In many ways she is disturbing the ghosts of the past as she sifts through her

stories and “night thoughts”. Look at the ways in which these ghosts

manifest themselves physically throughout the novel. How does the ghost or

presence of her brother, Liam, make itself felt, if at all?

3. The novel eloquently explores the landscape of grief and the ways in which a

death inevitably brings up memories and questions about the past. Talk

about Veronica’s immediate responses to Liam’s death, and compare and

contrast her mother’s reactions.