The Wren, The Wren
Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2024
-
-
3.9 • 8 Ratings
-
-
- £5.99
-
- £5.99
Publisher Description
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2024
WINNER OF THE WRITERS’ PRIZE FOR FICTION 2024
Carmel had been alone all her life. The baby knew this. They looked at each other, and all of time was there. The baby knew how vast her mother's loneliness had been.
‘A magnificent novel’ SALLY ROONEY
Nell is a young woman with adventure on her mind. As she sets out into the world, she finds her family history hard to escape. For her mother, Carmel, Nell’s leaving home opens a space in her heart, where the turmoil of a lifetime begins to churn. Over them both falls the long shadow of Carmel’s famous father, an Irish poet of beautiful words and brutal actions.
From our greatest chronicler of family life, The Wren, The Wren is a story of the love that can unite us, and the individual acts that threaten this vital bond.
‘A triumph…treasure it’ SUNDAY TIMES
‘One of the great living writers on the subject of family’ NEW YORK TIMES
‘A must-read’ MARGARET ATWOOD (on Twitter)
‘Might just be Anne Enright’s best yet’ LOUISE KENNEDY
*A SUNDAY TIMES, OBSERVER, GUARDIAN, TLS, HARPER’S BAZAAR, NEW STATESMAN, THE NEW YORKER, TIME AND WASHINGTON POST BOOK OF THE YEAR*
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The whip-smart latest from Booker winner Enright (The Gathering) explores the complex legacy of a revered Irish poet. It begins in contemporary Dublin with late poet Phil McDaragh's granddaughter Nell, a recent university graduate who falls for and remains attached to a man despite suspecting he's being unfaithful and feeling underwhelmed by the sex ("not even bad in a good way"). Enright contrasts Nell's defiant and free-spirited narration with that of Carmel, Nell's caring and practical mother, who ponders her daughter's future and the pain of Phil's abandonment of her mother, Terry, when she was battling breast cancer. Phil's legacy is present within the novel in two forms: his poems, resplendent with images of birds and bucolic lyricism, which Enright presents in their entirety; and his troubling personal life, both as an absentee father and a toxic partner to various women (a former lover and fellow poet's relationship with him is characterized on a Wikipedia page as "abusive"). Enright imbues a sense of great importance to domestic incidents, such as in a flashback to Nell as a child, when Carmel strikes her after she acts out by breaking a light fixture, but the tone is far from despondent; the prose fizzes with wit and bite. Enright's discomfiting and glimmering narrative leans toward a poetic sense of hope.
Customer Reviews
the wren, the wren
I started reading and struggled with my disappointment as I love Anne Enright’s work. But I couldn’t cope with the abusive relationship experienced by Nell. I read on and then put the book to one side. And then I suddenly loved the book and it ended too quickly and I was bereft. So I immediately returned to the beginning and started again. This time I loved the book! I loved the beginning. I think I was in a difficult emotional place and of course that is what is so wonderful about her writing- it reaches into you and sometimes hits the sore bits. Loved the book and will read it many times. Recommended. Jan Rodger