The Green Road by Anne Enright is Ballymena Book Club’s latest bookclub choice. Last month the group enjoyed the debut novel by Irish author Sarah Baume, “Spill, Simmer, Falter, Wither”. While opinions were split on this story of one man and his dog, all members of the book club agreed that they are excited to see what Baume will write next.
The Green Road by Anne Enright
This month the book club have again chosen an Irish author, in fact Anne Enright is the inaugural Laureate for Irish Fiction, who has written six novels, including award winner The Gathering, several collections of short stories and a non-fiction piece about motherhood. Want to know what her latest book is like? Here is a taster which should get you interested;
A darkly glinting novel set on Ireland’s Atlantic coast, The Green Road is a story of fracture and family, selfishness and compassion – a book about the gaps in the human heart and how we learn to fill them.
The children of Rosaleen Madigan leave the west of Ireland for lives they never could have imagined in Dublin, New York and various third-world towns. In her early old age their difficult, wonderful mother announces that she’s decided to sell the house and divide the proceeds. Her adult children come back for a last Christmas, with the feeling that their childhoods are being erased, their personal history bought and sold.
Anne Enright is addicted to the truth of things. Sentence by sentence, there are few writers alive who can invest the language with such torque and gleam, such wit and longing – who can write dialogue that speaks itself aloud, who can show us the million splinters of her characters’ lives then pull them back up together again, into a perfect glass. (Source)
We cant wait to get some time to settle down in our favourite reading spot and get stuck into this Irish novel. If you enjoy Irish authors such as Anne Enright we suggest that you pick up “Spill, Simmer, Falter, Wither” by Sarah Baume, a novel by Donal Ryan, Colm Tóibín or if you enjoy crime novels seek out something by Tana French.
If you are interested in join the Ballymena book club then just pick up the book, read it and turn up at Waterstones in the Fairhill Shopping centre in Ballymena on Wednesday 3rd June at 7pm. Enjoy good conversation over a tea or coffee at Ballymena Book Club.