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by Anne Enright
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.
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (12/25/2025)
I am reading Cat by Rebecca van Laer (and Mittens and Solstice approve!) I read The Gathering by Anne Enright last week, and next up is Train Dreams by Denis Johnson.
-Evonne_Benedict
What are you reading this week? (3/6/2025)
I recently finished Actress by Anne Enright. I didn't like it as much as The Gathering, and recently read a comment that insists The Green Road is her best novel, so now it's on my 'to be read' list. Today I finished a crime fiction novel, The Stolen Hours by Allen Eskens. Gripping story and a co...
-Jennie_Reece
Booker Prize, 2007
"A melancholic love and rage bubbles just beneath the surface of this Dublin clan, and Enright explores it unflinchingly." - Publishers Weekly.
"Starred Review. Enright's hypnotic prose turns her desperation into something fierce and beautiful." - Booklist.
"In a word: heavy. Or so you might think. But in this mystery of past causes, the transformative power of Enright's language keeps the story's freight from burdening the reader." - New York Times.
"A dreamy, melancholy swirl of a story, wise about the bonds and burdens linking children to each other and their grown selves." - Kirkus Reviews.
"In the supercharged beauty of her oddly brittle, spiky sentences, you hear the cadences of the incomparable Don DeLillo. . . . The penetrating exploration of domestic relationships, especially among women, calls to mind . . . Anne Tyler." - Newsday.
"Delivers with sharp wit and a huge heart." - Elle.
This information about The Gathering 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.
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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