October 5th, 2007
Anne Enright
Over a lukewarm takeaway tea in a gallery this morning, I had a really interesting chat with Anne Enright, who was gracious and charming about the forthcoming Booker Prize. At least she didn’t mind me alluding to it, unlike my innocent-remark-bites-you-on-the-ass Beryl Bainbridge encounter.
Anyway, no better reason than to post the following.
* Read The Gathering. Yes, I know, when I heard it was a book about a post-Catholic Irish family with demons and cupboard-stashed skeletons who reconvene for the funeral of an alcoholic sibling, I shuddered. Could I really face another Irish book about abuse, drinking, bad mothers and penury? As it turns out, The Gathering grabbed a hold of me and wouldn’t go. Enright is a supremely good writer, an extraordinary stylist and a master of characterisation. Someone I spoke to recently said she “didn’t believe” in the protagonist Veronica, but I think post-boom Ireland is full of married women sitting in their immaculate houses, measuring pride in their children as much as their S-class Mercedes, draining a nightly bottle of wine.
* Enright has an essay about the McCann family and the disappearance of their daughter Madeleine in the current issue of the London Review of Books.
* The Irish Independent’s mixed bag series on Irish Women Writers reaches book four of 20 this Saturday with Enright’s The Pleasure of Eliza Lynch. A purchase of the paper plus €4.99 and it’s yours.
* Ahead of the interview, I tried to find a copy of Making Babies, her book about motherhood, but found it frustratingly hard to track down. I read extracts of it when it was published two years ago and look forward to hearing her observations on the rewarding insanity that is parenthood. In the meantime, read her frank take on breast-feeding, “My Milk”. Despite accusations of bleakness in her work (which The Gathering reinforces) Enright also does humour: subtly, and very well. In an essay for the LRB, she explains how her five-year-old daughter announced her intention to be a Muslim. Her mother’s response? “It’s an awful lot of washing”.
* I’m told our next bookclub book is under 150 pagest (praise be), so here are Enright’s Top 10 slim volumes.
* Chatting about finding the time to write when you have children, she advised me to have “nerves of steel” and forego housework - something I’m not terribly good at anyway - in favour of creativity. I also came across this nugget of wisdom when asked what she tells aspiring writers.
“A successful writer did not write the book you open in the shop. The successful writer wrote about sixteen crap books, and kept working them, and rearranging them until one less crap book was born. Never look at your work and despair - this is hard, it takes nerves of steel - look at your work and then work at it.”
October 5th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
Great post Sinead - will definitely give The Gathering a read when I finish Roddy Doyle’s The Deportees (so far, so…nice). Hmm..is it wrong to drain a nightly bottle of wine without having the Merc and kids to glow over?
Also, I enjoyed your Stars review in The Ticket - didn’t agree with it though!
See you at this Triv tournament…
October 5th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Thanks for this, Sinéad. I’m chuffed for Anne. That last quote says it all. Not only is she a damn fine (and funny) writer, she’s worked long and hard to make it look easy. Here’s hoping she wins on 16 October. She’ll grace it if she does.
October 6th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
I bought my mum Making Babies for Christmas a few years back and I read it myself afterwards, it’s brilliant. Oddly, I got it in Read’s on Nassau Street but I think that was within the same year it was published, so it was still to be seen on shelves regularly. I hope you find a copy, it’s well worth a read!
October 9th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
Lovely post Sinead. I have a copy of Making Babies if you’d like?
October 9th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
Tanya, thank you. Apologies if you’re a Stars fan, but crikey I hated that album. Of course there’s nothing wrong with nightly the draining of a bottle of wine! I suppose I was trying to get at the fact that some people - the new money types, the SUV-owning, multiple mortgage holding folk - are rich materially, but often seek real fulfillment or happiness in the bottom of an expensive, designer glass.
Philip, great to hear from you - yes, I’d love to see her win next week. I don’t think McEwan will, but make me eat those words next week if he does.
Paula, thanks for that. My mum is reading The Gathering at the moment so I’m really keen to hear her take on it.
Roisin, hello you! Would love to borrow that if I may? I’ll drop you a mail now with my address. Thanks so much.
October 9th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
Last month I read a post over on anther blog about Enright and read a few of her newspaper articles, must look her books up next time I make it to the library
October 18th, 2007 at 11:33 am
Congrats to Anne however who is she to criticise the McCann’s on how they are dealing with the loss of their daughter. I would encourage her to walk in their shoes for an hour and then would she be so quick to judge!
October 18th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
I HATE Enright. What she said about the McCanns is dispicable. If only she could be in the same awful position, then maybe her self righteousness would step down. Writers are not Gods, they do not know things that other people don’t. They do not have the right to judge or say whatever they want, not caring who they hurt. She thinks she can say what she wants because she is a writer. I lost all respect for her pompous jack-o-lanteen stupid face!!!!!
October 18th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Thanks for the link to the series on Irish women writers. Very exciting.