Book Summary and Reviews of The Wren, the Wren by Anne Enright

The Wren, the Wren by Anne Enright

The Wren, the Wren

A Novel

by Anne Enright

  • Critics' Consensus (7):
  • Readers' Rating (22):
  • Published:
  • Sep 2023, 288 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

An incandescent novel from one of our greatest living novelists (The Times) about the inheritance of trauma, wonder, and love across three generations of women.

Nell McDaragh never knew her grandfather, the celebrated Irish poet Phil McDaragh. But his love poems seem to speak directly to her. Restless and wryly self-assured, at twenty-two Nell leaves her mother Carmel's orderly home to find her own voice as a writer (mostly online, ghost-blogging for an influencer) and to live a poetical life. As she chases obsessive love, damage, and transcendence, in Dublin and beyond, her grandfather's poetry seems to guide her home.

Nell's mother, Carmel McDaragh, knows the magic of her Daddo's poetry too well―the kind of magic that makes women in their nighties slip outside for a kiss and then elope, as her mother Terry had done. In his poems to Carmel, Phil envisions his daughter as a bright-eyed wren ascending in escape from his hand. But it is Phil who departs, abandoning his wife and two young daughters. Carmel struggles to reconcile "the poet" with the father whose desertion scars her life, along with that of her fiercely dutiful sister and their gentle, cancer-ridden mother. To distance herself from this betrayal, Carmel turns inward, raising Nell, her daughter, and one trusted love, alone.

the wren, the wren brings to life three generations of McDaragh women who must contend with inheritances―of poetic wonder and of abandonment by a man who is lauded in public and carelessly selfish at home. Their other, stronger inheritance is a sustaining love that is "more than a strand of DNA, but a rope thrown from the past, a fat twisted rope, full of blood." In sharp prose studded with crystalline poetry, Anne Enright masterfully braids a family story of longing, betrayal, and hope.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"The exceptional, multigarlanded Irish writer returns with a three-generation, woman-centered family portrait marked by "inheritance, of both trauma and of wonder," and melodious, poetic echoes. Lyrical poems of birds punctuate the text, as do snatches of cruelty and violence between men and women, sisters, men and animals, even parents and children. But the familial connections are indelible and enduring. Tender and truthful as ever, Enright offers a beguiling journey to selfhood." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Enright imbues a sense of great importance to domestic incidents, such as in a flashback to Nell as a child, when Carmel strikes her after she acts out by breaking a light fixture, but the tone is far from despondent; the prose fizzes with wit and bite. Enright's discomfiting and glimmering narrative leans toward a poetic sense of hope." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Enriched by searing if beautiful poetry, Enright's beseeching novel thrums with desire, heartache, and connection." —Booklist (starred review)

"These pages practically crackle with intelligence, compassion, and wit. Phil McDaragh is so real I almost googled him. the wren, the wren might just be Anne Enright's best yet." —Louise Kennedy, author of Trespasses

"Sharp, sudden, mischievous, sublime—this is dazzling novel; a glorious multi-generational novel of tangled relationships, secret, bodies, sex. Nell must be one of the best young women I've read in recent Irish fiction." —Lucy Caldwell, author of These Days

"the wren, the wren is a magnificent novel. Anne Enright's stylistic brilliance seems to put the reader directly in touch with her characters and the rich territory of their lives." —Sally Rooney, author of Beautiful World, Where Are You

This information about The Wren, the Wren was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Anne Enright Author Biography

Photo: Hugo Chaloner

Anne Enright is author of seven novels, most recently Actress. She has been awarded the Man Booker Prize, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Irish Book Awards. She lives in Dublin.

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