Gathering. It is what friends and family and colleagues and sometimes even strangers do when someone dies. As an aside, I just attended my very first virtual funeral (a Doom Zoom, we are calling it).
In Elizabeth Enright's Gathering, what is left of a very large family gather to say goodbye to Liam: a son, a brother, an uncle, a beloved who has committed suicide by drowning off the coast of England. Separated in age by a little over a year, sister Veronica Hegerty is Liam's nearest and dearest sibling and more his twin in every sense. It is her responsibility to collect the body and hold the gathering. She tells Liam's story through a series of childhood flashbacks and present-day adult manic musings. Growing up with Liam was a mixture of deep seated secrets and innocence lost. Veronica spends her time trying to puzzle the clues and remembering the memories. Here's what we all do when someone close to us commits suicide: we sift through the ashes of a life burnt out, searching for clues to why they left us; trying to answer the questions of Is it our fault? Did we set the fire? What could we have done differently to save them? (To quote Natalie Merchant, "It was such a nightmare raving how can we save him from himself?" Are you surprised I went there? How could I not?) As for her adult issues, thirty-nine year old Veronica wrestles with problems with her marriage, confused by subliminal hang-ups about sex. She has inner demons that have haunted her since childhood. I honestly can't say how well I enjoyed The Gathering. It did leave me thinking of the characters for a long time afterwards, so there's that. ( )

It's been said that Sigmund Freud said of the Irish "This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever."
After reading the Gathering you can begin to understand why. The Irish seem to be haunted not only by guilt and shame, but by the ghosts of their dead relatives as well. Here's a particularly telling passage from the novel :

" I know I sound bitter, and Christ I wish I wasn't such a hard bitch sometimes, but my brother blamed me for twenty years or more. He blamed me for my nice house, with the nice white paint on the walls, and the nice daughters in their bedrooms of nice lilac and nicer pink. He blamed me for my golf loving husband, though God knows it is many years since Tom had free time for a round of golf. He treated me like I was selling out on something, though on what I do not know-- because Liam did not allow dreams either, of course. My brother had strong ideas about justice, but he was unkind to every single person who tried to love him; mostly, and especially, to every woman he ever slept with, and still after a lifetime of spreading hurt around, he managed to blame me. And I managed to feel guilty. Now why is that ?
This is what shame does. This is the anatomy and mechanism of a family--a whole fucking country--drowning in shame."


Being of Irish decent myself I can safely say Yeah, that's the Irish for you. ( )

I thought it was very well written and interesting writing in the way that it was sort of free form thought on paper, but it was way too depressing for me to continue reading until the end. ( )

Winner of the Man Booker Prize in 2007, this is a book I should have put aside, and not completed. It was too depressing, as usual for most books I've read with the characters where the setting is Ireland. Make no doubt about it Liam is dead, a suicide? The story is told from the perspective of his sister. Bonded together in childhood, Liam drifted into a life of alcohol, and thus they drifted apart.

There are nine surviving children. The way in which their births are depicted is in a matter of fact, here comes yet another child, manner. And now, as the remaining people in the family gather together, there is a story to tell of Liam. Many more questions than answers are posited throughout.

I simply didn't like the book. By the time I really didn't want to continue, I had invested hours reading, and I wanted to see some redemption. I should have known better.

There were way too many pages consumed with the description of body parts, and way too much sex that I didn't think added to the story. There were too many vivid descriptions of coupling, genitalia, and downright depression.

I'll agree to disagree with those who found this a good book.

I am sure many liked this book, but I am not one of them.

Set mostly in Ireland this book is a family saga of memories and grief. Protagonist Veronica is on her way to collect the body of her brother, Liam, who has died by suicide. She reflects on her childhood when she and Liam were sent to live with her grandmother. She relives a dark memory and wonders if she recalls it correctly. She wonders how much it may have contributed to her brother’s suicide. There is no plot, as such – it follows a person working through grief and its impact on her own life.

As may be expected in a book centered around a suicide, this novel is sad. The tone is somber and reflective. I would not recommend it for anyone recently bereaved or suffering from depression. Though the content is not what I normally prefer to read, I admire the writing style. I had previously read Enright’s The Green Road, which is a similar sad book about a large Irish family gathering. I would love to see what the author could do with more uplifting material.
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