I always enjoy a good family drama and no one does families like the Irish – what is it about Irish stories that is so quirky and interesting? Perhaps it has something to do with what Tolstoy said … ‘All happy families resemble each other, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’
Well, one particularly unhappy Irish family is the Hegartys in Anne Enright’s novel The Gathering. Told from Veronica Hegarty’s point of view, it’s about the nine siblings who gather at their mother’s home for the wake of brother Liam. Liam has killed himself, walking into the sea at Brighton, at the age of forty. Continue reading “The Hegartys Meet the Middlesteins”
