Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Book #65: The Gathering


Title: The Gathering
Author: Anne Enright

When Veronica Hagerty's brother Liam commits suicide, she confronts the demons of their past and current lives, focusing on the lingering effects of sexual abuse.

First of all, I know from past reading experience that the Booker Prize doesn't always go to an author's best work, but often to their most recent work once they've achieved a certain status as an author (take Ian McEwan's Amsterdam, for example). This is the first time I've read anything by Anne Enright, and although it was a fine book, and I could identify with her struggle as a SAHM to find purpose once her kids started getting older, I found the main character, Veronica Hagerty, so unlikeable that it was hard to fall in love, or even really like, with this book. But then again, I've never been so brought down by grief or loss that maybe it's just hard to understand her perspective.

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