DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

The Gathering

Anne Enright author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Vintage Publishing

Published:20th Mar '08

Should be back in stock very soon

The Gathering cover

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 as a boy in his grandmother's house, in the winter of 1968.

'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 as a boy in his grandmother's house, in the winter of 1968.

The Gathering is a novel about love and disappointment, about thwarted lust and limitless desire, and how our fate is written in the body, not in the stars.

'It is clearly the product of a remarkable intelligence, combined with a gift for observation and deduction' A.L. Kennedy, Guardian

She beautifully describes the way hurt can be inherited... Enright is a daring writer - witty, original and inventive... Utterly compelling -- Eithne Farry * Daily Mail *
It is clearly the product of a remarkable intelligence, combined with a gift for observation and deduction -- A. L. Kennedy * Guardian *
A welcome return, for this writer, to novel form, and as a fresh, sophisticated take on the ever-popular dysfunctional family saga -- Eve Patten * Irish Times *
Anne Enright has all she needs in terms of imagination and technique and she's a tremendous phrase maker -- Adam Mars-Jones * Observer *
Enright ambushes as memory does, drawing you into an event and then questioning its reality * Sunday Telegraph *

  • Winner of Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year Award 2008
  • Winner of Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2007
  • Short-listed for International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2009
  • Short-listed for Irish Book Awards: RTE Radio 1's The Tubridy Show Listeners' Choice Award 2008
  • Short-listed for Independent Booksellers' Week Book of the Year Award: Adults' Book of the Year 2008

ISBN: 9780099501633

Dimensions: 198mm x 130mm x 17mm

Weight: 194g

272 pages