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 L贸pez 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.