The Gathering

Anne Enright · b. 1962 · Ireland

Why it matters

Veronica Hegarty brings her brother's body home from Brighton and reconstructs (or invents) the moment in their grandmother's house that set his drowning in motion. Booker winner in 2007: grief anatomized with scalpel sentences and zero consolation.

At a glance

An unreliable narrator who revises her own scenes as she tells them; bleak material throughout.