The Gathering
SynopsisPlot
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.
Story
About this book
The Gathering follows Veronica Hegarty as she travels to collect the body of her brother Liam, who has drowned in the sea. Liam was one of a large Irish family, and the nine surviving Hegarty siblings converge on Dublin for his wake. Veronica keeps company with the dead man, holding a secret the two of them shared about something that happened in their grandmother's house in the winter of 1968.
Anne Enright traces the story across three generations, following a line of betrayal and repair that runs from grandmother to parents to children. Veronica's narration is close and unsettled, shifting between sharp observation and doubt about her own memory. The wake becomes a place where grief, family loyalty, and long silences press against one another, while marriages and childhoods from earlier decades keep surfacing.
Enright, born in Dublin, published the novel in 2007, and it received the Man Booker Prize that year. Much of the present action stays in and around Dublin, where the extended family assembles, though Veronica's account keeps returning to older houses and earlier decades. The narrative circles its central episode rather than moving in a straight line, keeping that 1968 winter just out of full view.
