Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1756 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-20
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

London Review of Books
'...remarkable...for the unblinking attention it pays to the inner lives of its characters'

Irish Independent
At a time when everyone is mirroring everyone else, Enright's style of writing remains singular and instantly identifiable

Daily Mail
She beautifully describes the way hurt can be inherited... Enright is a daring writer - witty, original and inventive... Utterly compelling

Customer Reviews

The gathering of dispersive thoughts
`The Gathering' happens because Liam Hegarty dies suddenly. Through the words of his beloved sister Veronica who collects his body and organizes the funeral, we learn the tale of the Hegarty family and a terrible secret from the distant past which she shares with Liam. Collecting her thoughts, feelings and memories hopping through three generations I suppose reflects an intrinsic quality, a certain originality in this novel, but it still did not satisfy me.

The display of thoughts and situations that flow and scatter chasing each other in almost every page is often too disjointed for my liking. This probably conveys Veronica's pain and state of mind in an authentic way -facing the irreversible past and struggling with grief, seeking redemption- but I found that past and present interchanging swiftly, with juxtapositional vague memories and some mental images, rendered the whole story a bit knotty. Also, I really did not think that any of the characters were suitably portrayed. There are no standouts one way or the other, which could have added depth to the novel; perhaps this was the author's intention (i.e. a portrait of a very ordinary, numerous, imperfect family) but because most characters seem to just linger in the background, without much purpose, the result was that I soon found the whole thing quite dispersive, bordering boring.
I have finished the book because I always do, but I was expecting more by a Man Booker Prize Winner.
Sorry, sometimes that's the way it goes.

Misunderstood
A lot of people reviewed this book and were negative about the character development. To me it was all about the main character. Not anyone else. Her grief was obvious from the start til the finish. I think this is a book for someone who has lost a sibling, I have. Being from Dublin I also associate with some of the places of "refuge" that she went to lament. In all, I think this book was a true and honest novel that covered a fragile and important facet of loss.

Hard to comprehend other reviews here
This is easily the best book I have read this year. The prose is fantastic, beautiful and hallucinagenic (as the critics say). Quite how other reviews on here can find such wonderful writing boring is beyond me. I cannot recommend this book enough. Very few books truly waste a word but this is one. A very clever woman wrote this book.
Not for those who like detritus such as Jodi Picoult (now there is a BORING writer!)