The Wren The Wren

Susan Midalia's Review

Acclaimed writer Anne Enright’s new novel The Wren, The Wren, charts the lives of three generations of Irish women with her characteristic moral astuteness, tenderness and comic flair. Terry, Carmel and Nell have been both beguiled and damaged by Terry’s husband, the poet and philanderer Phil McDaragh. Their struggle with the cruelty and neediness of various men is beautifully counterpointed by the enduring bonds between mothers and daughters. The Wren, The Wren is also another brilliant example of Enright’s gift for ventriloquism: she alternates the voice of Gen Z Nell with that of Nell’s feisty mother Carmel to explore the difference between sentimentality and love; between sexual abjection and self-respect; between the desire for independence and the need for intimacy.

Exhilarating, provocative, and deeply moving.

Highly recommended.

Pulishers Reviews

A contemporary novel of daughterhood and motherhood, from the Booker Prize-winning Irish author

Carmel had been alone all her life. The baby knew this. They looked at each other, and all of time was there. The baby knew how vast her mother's loneliness had been.

A contemporary novel of daughterhood and motherhood, from the Booker Prize-winning Irish author

'A magnificent novel'
SALLY ROONEY, author of NORMAL PEOPLE

'Might just be her best yet'
LOUISE KENNEDY, author of TRESPASSES

'Gem-packed language... A must-read'
MARGARET ATWOOD, author of THE HANDMAID'S TALE (via Twitter)

Nell - funny, brave and so much loved - is a young woman with adventure on her mind. As she sets out into the world, she finds her family history hard to escape. For her mother, Carmel, Nell's leaving home opens a space in her heart, where the turmoil of a lifetime begins to churn. And across the generations falls the long shadow of Carmel's famous father, an Irish poet of beautiful words and brutal actions.

This is a meditation on love- spiritual, romantic, darkly sexual or genetic. A multigenerational novel that traces the inheritance not just of trauma but also of wonder, it is a testament to the glorious resilience of women in the face of promises false and true. Above all, it is an exploration of the love between mother and daughter - sometimes fierce, often painful, but always transcendent.

'One of our greatest living novelists'
THE TIMES