The Gathering
Book description
'Witty, original, inventive...utterly compelling' Daily Mail
Winner of the Man Booker Prize
The nine surviving children of the Hegarty clan gather in Dublin for the wake of their wayward brother Liam. It wasn't the drink that killed him - although that certainly helped - it was what happened to him…
Why read it?
2 authors picked The Gathering as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
I was engrossed by this beautifully written book about the way that things that happened in a previous generation can affect one’s happiness without one even knowing about them.
I totally identified with protagonist Veronica as she looks for clues as to why her brother committed suicide by imagining scenes from her parents’ past.
When I registered the subtle moment that was crucial to it all, everything fell into stark and terrible place, and it took my breath away. Both witty and sad, the book left a deep impression on me.
From Elizabeth's list on fighting to overcome the legacy of their parents’ past.
When Enright won the Booker for this novel she blazed onto my horizon – I was nineteen – as an Irish woman who wrote candidly about the legacies of poverty and abuse, set much of her novel in the radically unfashionable suburb of Broadstone, staged a climactic scene in the flatlands of Donabate (close to where I grew up), and then won a massive prize for doing that.
Everything Enright writes is marvelous, but The Gathering gives you a frank, familiar, post-Celtic Tiger version of Dublin that has been endlessly inspirational to my own recreations of it.
I love the…
From Niamh's list on capturing the haunted geography of Dublin.
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