Veronica Hegarty is a middle-aged Dublin mother of two who attends the wake of her brother Liam, who drowned himself in the sea at Brighton. One of twelve children of a large Irish family, she tries to understand what happened between them by returning to her grandmother's house and a childhood event she half remembers. Anne Enright mixes the present, with its failing marriage and wandering grief, with imagined versions of family history that may not be true. Memory itself becomes unreliable, and the story is as much about how families hide pain as about the death.
Anyone who likes a sharply observed, bitter and lyrical Irish voice will take to this. It offers a hard, honest look at grief and sibling relationships without sentimentality.
Deep, inward-looking and thought-provoking; a moderate read.
Best for readers like The Wisdom Collector. Which reader are you?
- Published
- 2007
- Language
- EN
