Presented to the Calgary Women’s Literary Club by Margaret S. on April 22, 2025.

Born in Dublin in October 1962, Anne Enright has an impressive resume of educational accomplishments, work experience as a television producer, and awards for her writing, including the Mann Booker Prize for her novel The Gathering, which was published in 2007.

In three of her novels – The Gathering, The Green Road, and Actress, Enright focuses mainly on family relationships. However, these relationships are strained and often difficult. For example, in The Gathering, the mother is worn out from constant pregnancies and appears to be largely ineffectual. The family gathering is for the wake and funeral of wild child Liam, which leads to the reader learning of the greatest and darkest family secret of all. A positive review in The New York Times stated there was “no consolation” in The Gathering.

The Green Road is another story of a large family with an ineffectual mother at its heart and family secrets. Actress is rather less distressing because there is genuine love between the mother (the actress) and the daughter, an only child. Nevertheless, the mother descends into madness and, inevitably, death without clearly revealing her secret – who is the father of her child!

Finally, The Pleasure of Eliza Lynch is an historical novel about the second President of Paraguay and a prostitute, whom he took back to Paraguay and his dreadful family. The story of their journey to and subsequent life in Paraguay, which ends in war and the president’s death, is both entertaining and frustrating. The frustration is largely due to the complicated timelines of the chapters.

Enright has many strengths. She is superb at building her characters and using them to reveal important information that advances the reader’s understanding. Enright also has a gift for allowing her characters to become part of world events, such as the scourge of HIV/AIDS and the Irish “Troubles,” in a way that personalizes the horrors of disease and war, and, in Actress, even the cruelty of life in the movies, especially for women. Finally, and best of all, she writes beautiful prose with a knack for moving seamlessly from ugliness to the sublime.

Another Irish author, Colm Toibin, compared Enright’s style to those of Joan Didion and Alice Munroe. For those who enjoy reading about family dynamics and who are not deterred by disaster, please read Anne Enright.

Written by Margaret S.