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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. His sister Veronica was there then, as she is now: keeping the dead man company, just for another little while. The Gathering is a family epic, condensed and clarified through the remarkable lens of Anne Enright’s unblinking eye. It is also a sexual history: tracing the line of hurt and redemption through three generations – starting with the grandmother, Ada Merriman – showing how memories warp and family secrets fester. This 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.
Anne Enright: The Gathering
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
The last time I cried in this kitchen…
I don't think she has ever hit me before.
Chapter 3
But it is too late for all that.
He returns. Nugent and Ada both look at him…
Chapter 4
I realise that I am driving the wrong way for home…
Chapter 5
A car pulls up outside…
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
And then we were caught.
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
He is the kind of man…
Charlie did love to leave.
If you ask me what my brother looked like…
Chapter 11
Tom was taught by the Jesuits…
Chapter 12
Liam never gave us a wedding.
I fell in love, I am beginning to realise…
Chapter 13
Chapter 13 (cont.)
Chapter 14
Mr. Nugent coming later with the box of jellied fruit…
It wasn't long before Michael wanted to call…
Chapter 15
Ada's little garden was probably just a yard…
Chapter 16
For the rest of the afternoon…
Chapter 17
Far ahead of us…
Chapter 18
We parted with a smile…
Chapter 19
This was 1967…
Chapter 19 (cont.)
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
It must have been bliss…
Chapter 22
I am trying to remember what he looked like…
Chapter 23
The streets are tiny.
Chapter 24
There is a big white house…
It is only a few miles away…
Chapter 25
Meanwhile, I had two friends dropping in…
Liam never had any truck with self-pity…
There was a wood we walked through once…
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
The last time I saw Dickie Kennedy…
Chapter 28
This is what, over the years…
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
How does he do it?
Tom's hand is warm on the base of my spine.
There is no wine.
I want to get drunk.
We are silent a moment after she is gone.
Here it comes. Ita has been drinking…
I am crying, I find.
The last is always the worst.
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
I owe it to Liam to makes things clear…
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Here they come: my mother, tiny and round…
I wait until we are at the hotel…
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
I wake again, and shower.
“Fiona Shaw’s mesmerising reading of her 2007 Man Booker prize novel The Gathering is a tour de force.”
Chapter 1
