The Gathering **1/2

By Anne Enright
Random House UK 2007
paperback Black Cat U.SWinner of 2007 Booker Award
260 pages

This is a story of an large Irish family who are "gathered" after the death of of one of the brothers. The gathering could also refer to the gathering of the body, which the main character is charged with doing.

The family is a dysfunctional one, for reasons which may or may not be traceable to the marriage of their grandmother. This is also a book about memory, because the narrator often tells stories about her family's past, and then the narrator isn't sure if that story actually happened. Which make for some pretty ambiguous reading. Why would the author tell us a detail and then claim, through the narrator, that is might not be the case and is ill remembered? It might have something to do with where the blame lies. The blame for the dysfunction in the family and the blame for the death of her favorite brother. The narrator tries to lay the blame at the feet of the other suitor of her grandmother. He wanted her, but she chose the other man who is the narrator's grandfather. This other suitor had some power over the family as he was the grandmother's and grandfather's landlord. He was also in love with the grandmother. The narrator as a child, had witness this man, Nugent, molest her brother and this is what she claims is the reason for her brother's suicide. And consequently for the problems of the whole clan.

And the problems of the family are not clear and cut problems. The brother, Liam, of course, was an alcoholic and was sexually loose sleeping with probably both men and women. The narrator of the story is unhappy in her marriage, but it is unclear why. The mother of the story almost seems vegetable like, but it is never explained. And the uncle is in an asylum.

The book presents the reader with two conflicting ideas at once. The fault of all the family's problems stem from the Nugent character, long ago, (though even before him, grandma was an orphan and probably a prostitute.) On the other hand, the ambiguity of all these details and the faulty remembrance of them make blaming of Nugent debatable. Could he really be responsible for all this?

This is an very introspective book. A psychological drama. I enjoyed it very much, but it took a while to get going. It's not a linear narrative, and jumps around a lot. It's also very slow to reveal key elements of the plot. Add that to the intentional muddying of the details though the narrator's faulty memory and this is one difficult read. If the book would have been just a little less opaque, I probably would have given it three stars. It's really a dark and sad book, which I like of course.