Join webchat with award-winning author ANNE ENRIGHT and discuss May book of the month THE GREEN ROAD on TUESDAY 24 May, 9-10pm

[TillyMumsnetBookClub]

Winner of the Irish Novel of the Year 2015, our May Book of the Month THE GREEN ROAD was also longlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize, shortlisted for the Costa Award and is currently on the shortlist for the Baileys Prize (announced 8th June). This may all feel familiar to its author, Anne Enright, who won the 2007 Booker Prize with THE GATHERING and in 2015 was made the inaugural Laureate for Irish Fiction. Enright's novels are fantastically well-crafted, eloquent and funny - even when they are quite bleak in subject matter. She is also an expert in dissecting family dynamics, and at examining their constant pull of complex emotions. In THE GREEN ROAD, we meet four siblings from County Clare who are set on very different paths. Their stories are tracked over 1980s to present day, across different countries, until they are all called back for Christmas in the family home, by their overpowering and manipulative mother. She announces she will be selling the house, which propels them into a crisis. Each character is beautifully realised, and their difference from each other as adults is contrasted with the sudden immersion into childhood stereotype and ingrained patterns once they are all reunited. What is special about Enright's handling of the family saga is her gift for the perfect sentence. She finds unexpected adjectives, brilliantly exact description, the spot-on emotion. Her writing is lyrical but always unsentimental. There is pleasure in reading every paragraph, and an enormous wisdom throughout the pages.

To find out more, go to our book of the month page, where you can also apply for a free copy - just fill in your details on the book of the month page and we'll post here to let you know when the copies have gone. If you’re not lucky enough to bag one of those, you can always get a Kindle edition or paperback copy here

We are thrilled and delighted that Anne will be joining us to answer your questions about The Green Road, all her previous award-winning novels and her stellar career on Tuesday 24 May, 9-10pm. Please feel free to discuss the book here throughout the month and then come and meet Anne on the night, and ask her a question or simply tell her what you think of her books.

@searchingforcalm

I do see that sense of a new dawn, Anne. Thank you.

Unlike Rosaleen, I love them all equally.

I'm going to jump in very early with my question, as its been playing in my mind for ages. Why is Rosaleen considered 'wonderful'? She is often referred to as somehow brilliant, or magnetic, yet there doesn't seem to be a any evidence of this, and I wondered if that was deliberate, whether the supposed brilliance is her own construct of how the world owes her. I was very struck by her memories of Pat as she walks the green road at the end of the book - is her own monstrous expectation born from her worrying about expectation, a product of her marrying 'beneath' her expected level?

I would love to know if you think she does have something wonderful about her. I thought she was a wonderfully realised character, complex and manipulative and working towards a personal epiphany, but I didn't see her as more remarkable or special than anyone else.

What I found brilliant was the way I had such compassion for her when she was old and alone, despite her self-absorption. You gently extracted that, and gave Rosaleen a sort of universal vulnerability that I found gripping and extremely moving.

Unlike Rosaleen, I love them all equally (getting the hang of this posting thing now..)

@FiDignan

Hi Anne,

Thanks for being here tonight. Did you have a favourite character in the book, and if so, who and why?

What are you working on at the moment?

@frogletsmum

Hi Anne,

I really enjoyed reading this book, and was struck by how different the four siblings are. I wondered if you have a favourite and which one you found easiest/most enjoyable to write about? Someone upthread has mentioned the relative lack of connection between the siblings, and I did wonder how they all ended up going in such different directions - were they all, in their own ways, trying to escape their upbringing?
The book focuses a lot on Rosaleen as a parent and the difficult relationship each of her children has with her, which is such a fertile and well trodden path - I just wondered if you have written in previous books or can imagine writing in such depth about father - child relationships?

Would love to write about fathers. Actually I never really wrote about men at all until this book. Its a new adventure! Thanks for the nudge

Thanks for your reply Anne - look forward to you writing about fathers and children!

I agree that the ending felt like a new dawn - I really liked the small incident at the end where Rosaleen apologises and admits fault, albeit a minor one. It felt redemptive.

Good evening. Me again. One question I wanted to ask is which contemporary authors do you enjoy reading?

Hi Anne,
I don't know whether you're working back through questions people stuck in before you came online, but I'll repost in case not -
----

Are you conscious of being perceived differently by reviewers in the UK as that Breed Apart, an 'Irish writer'? I ask because I often wonder when reading reviews of your novels in British broadsheets whether I've read a different novel to the reviewers. I just don't recognise the way your novels are often characterised as some kind of high-grade misery lit, (albeit sometimes with great admiration)? I think you'd need the reading equivalent of a tin ear to think of The Gathering or The Green Road as just, or even primarily a 'sad novel'.

But then there's some slightly weird transference thing that generally goes on with UK reviewers and Irish writing, anyway, as if there's some kind of Irish-specific set of themes, like mothers and abuse and religion, or we're all still obsessed with the famine and the spectre of James Joyce looms at us over our cornflakes.

@TillyMumsnetBookClub

I'm going to jump in very early with my question, as its been playing in my mind for ages. Why is Rosaleen considered 'wonderful'? She is often referred to as somehow brilliant, or magnetic, yet there doesn't seem to be a any evidence of this, and I wondered if that was deliberate, whether the supposed brilliance is her own construct of how the world owes her. I was very struck by her memories of Pat as she walks the green road at the end of the book - is her own monstrous expectation born from her worrying about expectation, a product of her marrying 'beneath' her expected level?

I would love to know if you think she does have something wonderful about her. I thought she was a wonderfully realised character, complex and manipulative and working towards a personal epiphany, but I didn't see her as more remarkable or special than anyone else.

What I found brilliant was the way I had such compassion for her when she was old and alone, despite her self-absorption. You gently extracted that, and gave Rosaleen a sort of universal vulnerability that I found gripping and extremely moving.

Thanks Tilly. Dessie thinks she is 'wonderful'. I mean her son in law can see her power and her charm. She reads, listens to music, likes art, dresses well, is charming charming charming. And then... she gets old, I suppose. Her word gets smaller. I could have done more of this early Rosaleen, I suppose. And I do think she is sort of wonderful, in her way. I mean, personally, that is what I think. Other people think she is a monster. I don't really do monsters, though. She is 'a bit of a business'

Yes definitely understandable from Constance. Thank you for your answer Anne.

Hi there, just wanted to know if you are writing a new book and what will the subject matter be? Really enjoyed this one, superb writing skills, a pleasure to read.

Oh. Reviews.

The whole business of reputation is not in my control. You are read differently in different cultures, for sure. All you can do is make the structure hold somehow - the internal tensions that keep the book together - and then let people make of it what they will. Some people MENTIONING NO NAMES don't get the joke. Any joke. And some critics like to control or possess a book. I don't write to be controlled like that. I like to keep moving. Especially when it comes to TONE.

Don't talk to me about Tin Ears.

Will answer question about Joyce later. Too busy looking at him over my cornflakes.

@CuteHoor

Hi Anne, I don't know whether you're working back through questions people stuck in before you came online, but I'll repost in case not - ----

Are you conscious of being perceived differently by reviewers in the UK as that Breed Apart, an 'Irish writer'? I ask because I often wonder when reading reviews of your novels in British broadsheets whether I've read a different novel to the reviewers. I just don't recognise the way your novels are often characterised as some kind of high-grade misery lit, (albeit sometimes with great admiration)? I think you'd need the reading equivalent of a tin ear to think of The Gathering or The Green Road as just, or even primarily a 'sad novel'.

But then there's some slightly weird transference thing that generally goes on with UK reviewers and Irish writing, anyway, as if there's some kind of Irish-specific set of themes, like mothers and abuse and religion, or we're all still obsessed with the famine and the spectre of James Joyce looms at us over our cornflakes.

@triniposse

Hi there, just wanted to know if you are writing a new book and what will the subject matter be? Really enjoyed this one, superb writing skills, a pleasure to read.

I am always writing. I take my line from a Stevie Smith poem that goes (I hope I get it right) 'She is writing, writing, writing, and perhaps it will be good."

I write a different family every book, a different mother every book. It’s funny how people think of ‘family’ and ‘mother’ as universal words - like, I don’t know ‘air’ - these mothers are very different people who happen to give birth, their children also have different relationships. Also, we all have families, we all have mothers, there is nothing especially Irish about it. But yes, it helps to be Irish when you are writing about human relationships in this way. English writers are more traditionally interested in society and class (to make a huge, sweeping statement).

Oh the watchman at the gate (or one of them) poisoned the dog (Emmet can't tell which one)

@Camelle

Thanks very much for my copy of the book - I've just finished reading it.

I saw this review of the book in the New Yorker magazine and thought it was superbly perceptive: www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/25/all-her-children
The "stop-start" nature of the novel mentioned in the review really did leave me focusing - perhaps a bit too much - on whether Enright can 'do' certain settings (early 90s New York, Mali, breast cancer clinic); I concluded that the scenes set in Ireland came across as most authentic.

The book contained some fresh, surprising metaphors, along with a keenly observed and cannily perceptive portrayal of people at their best and worst. This reflects that rare ability, possessed by the very best writers, to get the exact measure of a person or situation and capture it in words.

Despite all the shifting about, and on occasions some loose and vague language, and that the Madigans aren't particularly nice people, I still felt compelled to find out what happened to Rosaleen and her brood. There were some interesting mental health undercurrents that weren't fully explored in the story.

I wonder if the author ever feels pressured by the burden of representation: you are Irish, so whenever you write a family drama you are somehow representing all Irish families. My experience of this is with South Asian literature, so I wondered to what extent (if at all) the author had this in mind when writing the novel and whether it created any challenges.

Finally, I really, really want to know: who poisoned the dog???

@ahigney

Hi Anne! I feel so lucky to have The Green Road at home and after every chapter think and ponder about the characters.. Do you get inspired by other novels or novelists? What book that you have read lately made you stop and think?

sometimes I go back to the greats - say Proust - and half way down the page I start to muse. Other times I read a whole book to analyse the structure so I can solve a problem in my own work. I last did that, I think, with Beloved, by Toni Morrison. Sometimes I need just a fragment, sometimes the whole thing. I read a lot of non-fiction, now, as I find it more relaxing. Reading fiction just starts me writing.

Hi Anne

I haven't been to Ireland since the 1980s and I wondered if you wrote a book set in 2016 how different it would be from one written in the 80s. Has the falling off of religion made any great difference to people's lives and do you think your novel written today would be on a more cheerful note than your previous ones?

@searchingforcalm

Hi Anne,

I found the relationships between the siblings all too real and familiar – the way when you go back home you seem to step back into your childhood roles. There is a distance between them, and indeed from themselves in a way - they all seem to have an inner emptiness they are trying to fill. My question is, do you see any hope for them to heal themselves and improve their relationships with each other? Or are they doomed to “fall into the gap”, like Rosaleen?

I really think they have a better chance of happiness than their mother. They have more self-awareness, I think, and with that comes the potential for growth and change

I am fascinated by the (male ) critics who want to control a book comment.

@atrociouscook

Hi Anne

I haven't been to Ireland since the 1980s and I wondered if you wrote a book set in 2016 how different it would be from one written in the 80s. Has the falling off of religion made any great difference to people's lives and do you think your novel written today would be on a more cheerful note than your previous ones?

i don't know. Maybe I have a tragic muse. But Ireland is much more fun than it used to be, there is no doubt about that; much more open, and changing so fast. I have lived there all my life, pretty much. So there must be SOMETHING worth staying for (that was a joke). No I do love Ireland. I don't always love the way ireland describes itself, if that makes sense...

I am fascinated by the (male ) critics who want to control a book comment.

I'd actually like to put it on record that my family make the Madigans and the Hegartys look like the Oxo Family .

Can I ask another question, if you have time and inclination, as you were so gracious about the review question? Was having the setting of The Green Road (or some of it, anyway) in rural Clare a conscious decision that came early on in the writing or planning? I always think of you as a quintessentially Dublin writer, and while it's dopey to assume Things Are Different For Culchies, I sometimes do feel that rural Ireland, or at least its more thinly inhabited bits, is a different world to the cities. Or at least you end up moving into different writers' terrain.

Not that Edna O'Brien owns rural Clare, or anything.

@HalfStar

I am fascinated by the (male ) critics who want to control a book comment.

Not just men - don't get me wrong! The reason I like readers more than I like critics, is that a reader is there to understand, or experience the book, rather than to judge it. Reading brings you very close to something. I like that. I am (perhaps too much) interested in closeness.

I agree about the fresh start and sense of possibility, those tiny steps forward that occur after a crisis.

I'd like to see The Madigan Christmas: One Year On.

Everyone is at Dan and Ludo's for cranberry cocktails and turkey risotto.
Constance is wearing skin tight new body-con dress; Hanna has embraced clean eating and spirilazed courgette; Emmet is with new girlfriend, a high flying African merchant banker; Rosaleen has given all the present money to Oxfam to buy goats.

.........yes, I think I know what you mean. Ireland has a kind of inferiority complex brought on, I should think, by years of put down by the British, but I think the Irish sense of humour always wins out. I think you could write a very funny novel set in Ireland today - there's a challenge, to write an Irish novel which isn't all doom and gloom!