The Forgotten Waltz: Summary and book reviews of The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright, plus links to an excerpt from The Forgotten Waltz and a biography of Anne Enright.
The Forgotten Waltz
by Anne Enright
Hardcover: Oct 2011,
272 pages.
Paperback: Apr 2012,
272 pages.
In Terenure, a pleasant suburb of Dublin, it has snowed. Gina Moynihan, girl about town, recalls the trail of lust and happenstance that brought her to fall for "the love of her life," Seán Vallely. As the city outside comes to a halt, Gina remembers their affair: long afternoons made blank by bliss and denial. Now, as the silent streets and falling snow make the day luminous and full of possibility, Gina awaits the arrival of Seán's fragile, twelve-year-old daughter, Evie - the complication, and gravity, of this second life.
In this extraordinary novel, Anne Enright speaks directly to the readers she won with The Gathering. Here again is the momentous drama of everyday life; the volatile connections between people; the wry, accurate take on families, marriage, and brittle middle age. With The Forgotten Waltz Enright turns her attention to love, following another unforgettable heroine on a journey of the heart. Writing at the height of her powers, this is Enright's tour de force, a novel of intelligence, passion, and distinction.
What did Gina want? What did Seán want? It is not entirely clear, but I found myself fascinated and puzzled by these questions - unable to stop thinking about them - until I had reached my own conclusions several hours after turning the last page. What appears to be a simple story of adultery certainly has a secret layer. (Reviewed by Judy Krueger).
Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. [A] masterful and deeply satisfying novel.
Library Journal
Starred Review. A breathtaking work that will surprise you; highly recommended.
Kirkus Reviews
Starred Review. In rueful, witty, unpredictable and compassionate prose, Enright gives expression to subtle, affecting shades of human interaction.
The Seattle Times
Anne Enright is uncannily deft at portraying lust and passion as they morph into resignation and the realization that one marriage may be much like another.... Addictive reading.
The Telegraph (UK)
...[Enright's] novels are mosaics of small but captivating details. Her physical descriptions, in particular, are compressed masterpieces of glancing insight and spiky wit...
The subject of Anne Enright's The Forgotten Waltz is certainly not new to literature. Throughout the centuries, the concept of adultery has provided writers with rich fodder for wonderfully compelling stories.
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850):
After being abandoned by her husband, Hester Prynne has a secret affair with Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale and bears his child. Shunned by the community and forced to wear a scarlet letter "A" (for "adulterer") across her chest, she wrestles with her feelings of guilt.
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (1856):
Emma Bovary, the wife of Dr. Charles Bovary - a middle class...
A captivating work that explores the extremes of passion, the depths of loneliness, and the resilience of the human heart. By the author of the number-one New York Times bestseller Are You Somebody?
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(869 words).
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850):
After being abandoned by her husband, Hester Prynne has a secret affair with Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale and bears his child. Shunned by the community and forced to wear a scarlet letter "A" (for "adulterer") across her chest, she wrestles with her feelings of guilt.
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (1856):
Emma Bovary, the wife of Dr. Charles Bovary - a middle class...
