The Gathering by Anne Enright

'The Gathering' is a family epic, condensed and clarified through 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.

I can see the reviews are polarized. I'm only about 40 pages in, but suspect its my kind of book. I'm loving it. We're reading it for next month's book club and it will interesting to see how the group responds to it.

Finished it. I suspect not everyone in the book club will, but I thought it an very interesting book with the layering narrative.

Although occasionally difficult to follow, the language of this novel is beautiful and rewarding. The story is dark and disturbing, revealed as the narrator, Veronica, peels back layers of repressed memories.

What a strange strange novel. I find it difficult to believe that this is a Booker Prize winner (I hold this prize in very high esteem, but I am afraid this time it let me down). I found the narrator's preoccupation with sex (especially her own family's) and genitals rather disturbing. Almost the entire first half of the novel involves her imagining how her grandparents met and did or didn't shag! And if that isn't enough, at one point she thinks about her dead baby brother and imagines how he is having little cherub sex in heaven - umm, icky!

Occasionally there is a glimpse at the kind of book this could have been (and I suppose why it won the booker prize), when Enright delivers the most beautiful and powerful prose. However, this is few and far between. As for the plot, well, it is nothing new. Why would a man grow up to be a damaged alcoholic? Take a guess and you will probably be right.