the gathering by anne enright

review by nic

Well it was a struggle to read this, not that it's a difficult read, when I did pick it up I got through it quite quick, it was just bringing myself to read it that was the hard part and though I hate not finishing books, I was sorely tempted a number of times to e-mail round & say that I had had enough...

Also I haven't been in the best frame of mind recently so this was not really what I needed, but I only have myself to blame for that, hopefully I'll chose better next time! So I found it really quite depressing, it was bad enough that most of the book revolved round collecting Liam's body and the reality of his suicide, but the chapters on Veronica's grandmother Ada and without giving too much away what Lamb Nugent got up to, real or imagined, made me feel quite uncomfortable, though I guess this was the desired effect.

So moving on, I'm now reading Escape by Carolyn Jessop, which although is also not a happy read its a fascinating memoir on life born into the cult of FLDS and how she eventually escaped. The Jon Krakauer book Under the Banner of Heaven, which I read just before Xmas got me interested in this strange religion (if it can be called that) & to think this sort of thing goes on in modern day America is quite scary. I do prefer reading non-fiction to fiction though the great thing about a book club is it encourages a more diverse reading than one would normally.