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, she shows how memories warp and secrets fester. The Gathering is a family epic, clarified through Anne Enright’s unblinking eye. This is a novel about love and disappointment, about how fate is written in the body, not in the stars.
The Gathering sends fresh blood through the Irish literary tradition, combining the lyricism of the old with the shock of the new. As in all of Anne Enright’s work, this is a book of daring, wit, and insight, her distinctive intelligence twisting the world a fraction and giving it back to us in a new and unforgettable light.
