Anne Enright, The Gathering

The Gathering by Anne Enright is full of psychological insights rendered primarily through the interior monologue of the narrator, Veronica Hegarty. Her recollections inform present perceptions while acknowledging the fallibility of memory, perceived truth, and even love. The tragic death of her brother provides the real world event that anchors a search for definition and being. Veronica, approaching forty, is a kind of conduit between two very different generations in Ireland -- her mother's and her children's. She very ably depicts the Ireland of her childhood, a place that was (in retrospect) about to radically change.

The house she grew up in is like her family of origin "all extension and no house" -- the result of a series of unplanned add-ons. She examines the role of upbringing and circumstances in a family constellation of many different personalities forming one dysfunctional system where needs and wants tend to be only vaguely recognized. The tension between character and chance events helps make sense of her unfolding tale of tragedy. Veronica reconstructs her brother's life gone wrong - where were the early clues to his eventual demise? Where does the sin originate? Tracing back to her grandmother's generation she pieces together the past from scraps of memory and informed conjecture. Veronica's mysterious grandmother becomes a figure that is easier to imagine in vivid colors and she looks for clues in that earlier generation to flesh out her brother's destiny. Although her mother was a more constant presence growing up, her bland and dutiful existence, hobbled by the demands of a large unplanned family, leaves a vacuum that even Veronica's prodigious imagination cannot fill. "My mother is such a vague person, it is possible she can't even see herself. " Responding to the details of an everyday life populated by a large brood of children apparently leaves no time for self definition. All of this is framed by powerful incidental and localized metaphor which has the effect of rendering Veronica's internal life more tangible.

As the book progresses the style and directness of the writing mirror the increased surety of the narrator. All of this remembering, conjecturing and fantasizing helps her to frame her own relationships to husband and young children. In what ways does past determine future? In what ways is she (and her relationships) damaged? What is capable of being repaired? Imagination fleshes out the past allowing her to see the more defined reality of her own present life and relationships. We come to understand how events and relationships may shape us but our interior lives continue to work with this given material in ways that reshape and restructure.

Ultimately the past and present inform and re-inform each other in a reciprocal spiral until there is a compassionate grounding in the present and a more solid existence and future emerge. A very satisfying book.