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Available
Call number
Genres
Publication
Vintage Digital (2015), Edition: 01, 319 pages
Description
Fiction. Literature. HTML: From internationally acclaimed, Man Booker Prize�??winning author Anne Enright comes a shattering novel set in a small town on Ireland's Atlantic coast. The Green Road is a tale of family and fracture, compassion and selfishness�??a book about the gaps in the human heart and how we strive to fill them. Spanning thirty years, The Green Road tells the story of Rosaleen, matriarch of the Madigans, a family on the cusp of either coming together or falling irreparably apart. As they grow up, Rosaleen's four children leave the west of Ireland for lives they could have never imagined in Dublin, New York, and Mali, West Africa. 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. A profoundly moving work about a family's desperate attempt to recover the relationships they've lost and forge the ones they never had, The Green Road is Enright's most mature, accomplished, and unforgettable novel to date… (more)
Media reviews
The novel's form beautifully embodies its theme. Since it is concerned with breakages and splits, it begins by presenting us with one of Rosaleen's quarrelling children at a time, a chapter for each.
Enright withholds closure but doesn’t skimp on pleasure. Barely a page goes by without a striking phrase or insight. She convinces you of her setting, whether it’s west Africa or the East Village. The sons’ stories, unfolding farther afield, are story-driven; the energy in the daughters’
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stories comes from the texture of experience (a supermarket run; half-cut on vodka). Show Less
The characters are so finely realised that they seem continuous: we feel the pressures on Emmet as coming from the long past, part of the air he breathes; we understand that the absence of all three of Constance’s siblings is an unspoken part of her homemaking; most extraordinary of all, we
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experience Dan’s gaps and distance as part of his character, his distance from himself. It is not much like a novel, but it is a lot like knowing people; an awful lot like being alive. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member lit_chick
“It still got to them. Rosaleen never said it to your face, whatever it was. She moved instead around and behind her children, in some churning state of mild and constant distraction … She was afraid it was all her fault … All the things that were unsayable: failure, money, sex, drink.”
Rosaleen Madigan, who married beneath her and is now widowed, raised her children in the West of Ireland. For reasons unknown even to herself, she is unable to love them. Not surprisingly, they will as adults make decisions which take them away from her, both geographically and emotionally. Dan announces he will enter the priesthood and emigrate to New York amidst the AIDS crisis; Emmet departs for the backlands of the Third World, affirming the fragility of love and order; actress Hannah leaves for modern-day Dublin, disappearing into alcoholism and the trials of motherhood. Constance alone remains local, but will experience a painful descent into obesity. When Rosaleen decides to sell the family home, all of her adult children visit for Christmas – bringing with them, of course, the complications of their present lives as well as the dysfunction of their past. And Rosaleen will play them like she always has, knowing precisely how each will react to a given tactic – a master of control, she will cause them to form alliances with and against herself and one another, until she has everyone to their very limits.
The Green Road is a stunner – one of those rare gifts that resonated deeply and personally from the first page – and which comes along only ever so rarely. Enright gifts us with an extraordinary and intimate story of one family: of its fractures and selfishness and humanity. And through her fabulously developed characters, she teaches us about the gaps in the human heart and how we learn to fill them. Most highly recommended.
“And when she had won, when she had everyone at the limit of themselves – Constance weeping as she rushed up the broken china, Constance begging to be forgiven – then she might decide not to sell the house after all. She might not bother. And life would continue as before.” (246)
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(224)Rosaleen Madigan, who married beneath her and is now widowed, raised her children in the West of Ireland. For reasons unknown even to herself, she is unable to love them. Not surprisingly, they will as adults make decisions which take them away from her, both geographically and emotionally. Dan announces he will enter the priesthood and emigrate to New York amidst the AIDS crisis; Emmet departs for the backlands of the Third World, affirming the fragility of love and order; actress Hannah leaves for modern-day Dublin, disappearing into alcoholism and the trials of motherhood. Constance alone remains local, but will experience a painful descent into obesity. When Rosaleen decides to sell the family home, all of her adult children visit for Christmas – bringing with them, of course, the complications of their present lives as well as the dysfunction of their past. And Rosaleen will play them like she always has, knowing precisely how each will react to a given tactic – a master of control, she will cause them to form alliances with and against herself and one another, until she has everyone to their very limits.
The Green Road is a stunner – one of those rare gifts that resonated deeply and personally from the first page – and which comes along only ever so rarely. Enright gifts us with an extraordinary and intimate story of one family: of its fractures and selfishness and humanity. And through her fabulously developed characters, she teaches us about the gaps in the human heart and how we learn to fill them. Most highly recommended.
“And when she had won, when she had everyone at the limit of themselves – Constance weeping as she rushed up the broken china, Constance begging to be forgiven – then she might decide not to sell the house after all. She might not bother. And life would continue as before.” (246)
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LibraryThing member rmckeown
My Irish roots occasionally lead me to wander into stories of the “Olde Sod.” When one of those stories comes from the quill of a Man Booker Prize winner, I have no hesitation at all. Ann Enright’s 2015 novel, The Green Road, tells the story of a family dispersed around the globe.
Rosaleen
Dan moves to New York and engages in some risky relationships. Constance is driven to distraction by the demands of her mother. Emmet loses Alice who takes off for a distant area of the globe. Hannah is an alcoholic, who suffers from depression following the birth of her child. Complications to all these problems arise from Rosaleen’s obliviousness to the truth about her family.
Enright delves into the turmoil in the lives of each of these children. For example, she writes about Constance, who has discovered a growth in her breast. “If she had gone to New York she would not have worried about cancer now. She would have been jogging for years, living on wheatgrass, she would have a yoga ‘practice’, maybe even a personal trainer, and her children would be – she could not imagine what her New York Children would have been like – whiny, at a guess, that mixture of entitlement you saw in city kids. Her children would be fewer. Her children would not exist. Their souls would call to her from the eyes of strangers, as though they’d found some other way into the world. She would turn in the street to look at them twice: who are you?” (87). Enright alludes to the allure of exaggerated ideas of the new world tinged with realism and some wishful thinking. My introduction to Enright was her 2007 Booker Prize winner, The Gathering, which dealt with similar themes – family relationships, love, sex, and the Irish Zeitgeist.
Each chapter is devoted to one of the family members. In one, Rosaleen wanders around her home nattering about the past. Ann writes, “The kitchen was the easiest room in the house, with the heat of the range and two windows, one facing south and the other west. But it was November, and there were days when she filled a hot water bottle just to make it down the hall. Outside she had a winter flowering cherry set against the silhouetted winter branches, but it would not bloom for many weeks yet. Meanwhile, she had no evergreens, for being too depressing, and every November she thought about a blue spruce, or those needle-thin Italian pines, and every November she decided against. It was an Irish garden. A broadleaf garden, except for the monkey puzzle at the front of the house. Straggly now – there were dead and half dead branches for fifty feet or more, but it was her father’s tree and nothing gave her more pleasure. The monkey puzzle was allowed, as Dan used to say” (145).
Ann Enright’s novel, The Green Road, with nearly rare expletives and a few sexual references, is an absorbing, interesting look at modern Ireland. The ending is tense as the clan gathers for what may be their last Christmas together. 5 stars
--Jim, 6/25/15
Rosaleen
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Madigan is the matriarch of her four children. Dan announces he wants to become a priest, and this drives his mother into a funk which last over a month. She is unable to get out of bed. Constance – the only sibling to remain in Ireland -- marries Dessie, a local real estate developer, and they have three children, Donal, Rory, and Shauna. Emmet wanders the globe doing good deeds in impoverished nations. He is in a relationship with Alice – a fellow activist -- which breaks apart as the novel begins. Hannah is the youngest. She is a film actress who lives in Los Angeles with Hugh and their infant child. This might seem an often used scenario, but Enright delves into what drives this family apart with a rather interesting prose narrative.Dan moves to New York and engages in some risky relationships. Constance is driven to distraction by the demands of her mother. Emmet loses Alice who takes off for a distant area of the globe. Hannah is an alcoholic, who suffers from depression following the birth of her child. Complications to all these problems arise from Rosaleen’s obliviousness to the truth about her family.
Enright delves into the turmoil in the lives of each of these children. For example, she writes about Constance, who has discovered a growth in her breast. “If she had gone to New York she would not have worried about cancer now. She would have been jogging for years, living on wheatgrass, she would have a yoga ‘practice’, maybe even a personal trainer, and her children would be – she could not imagine what her New York Children would have been like – whiny, at a guess, that mixture of entitlement you saw in city kids. Her children would be fewer. Her children would not exist. Their souls would call to her from the eyes of strangers, as though they’d found some other way into the world. She would turn in the street to look at them twice: who are you?” (87). Enright alludes to the allure of exaggerated ideas of the new world tinged with realism and some wishful thinking. My introduction to Enright was her 2007 Booker Prize winner, The Gathering, which dealt with similar themes – family relationships, love, sex, and the Irish Zeitgeist.
Each chapter is devoted to one of the family members. In one, Rosaleen wanders around her home nattering about the past. Ann writes, “The kitchen was the easiest room in the house, with the heat of the range and two windows, one facing south and the other west. But it was November, and there were days when she filled a hot water bottle just to make it down the hall. Outside she had a winter flowering cherry set against the silhouetted winter branches, but it would not bloom for many weeks yet. Meanwhile, she had no evergreens, for being too depressing, and every November she thought about a blue spruce, or those needle-thin Italian pines, and every November she decided against. It was an Irish garden. A broadleaf garden, except for the monkey puzzle at the front of the house. Straggly now – there were dead and half dead branches for fifty feet or more, but it was her father’s tree and nothing gave her more pleasure. The monkey puzzle was allowed, as Dan used to say” (145).
Ann Enright’s novel, The Green Road, with nearly rare expletives and a few sexual references, is an absorbing, interesting look at modern Ireland. The ending is tense as the clan gathers for what may be their last Christmas together. 5 stars
--Jim, 6/25/15
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LibraryThing member EBT1002
Oh good. A family drama. Just what I (don't) love. But this one manages to just skate past petulance and embrace poignance instead. Set, or, more accurately, anchored in a small town in Ireland, The Green Road starts by introducing four siblings, each of whom has struggled with the legacy of an
"It was a question of texture, Dan thought, a whiff of your former self in a twist of fabric, a loose board. It was the reassuring madness of patterned wallpaper under the daily shift of light. The sun rose at the front and set at the back of Ardeevin, wherever he was in the world, and when he came back, the house made sense in a way that nothing else did."
This is just one example of Enright's stunning writing; passages like this almost sneak past the reader because they are so interwoven throughout.
The novel loses one full star for the first chapter which resonated not one bit. Hannah, the primary character of the first chapter, never really comes into focus in the novel and this start fails to establish either ambience or tone. It loses another half star for the periodic failure of pacing; I don't always completely trust my brief spells of boredom with an otherwise very good novel, but I have to reflect that part of my reading experience in my rating. Still, though it's not quite great, I'm glad I read it.
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inconsistent and self-absorbed mother. They have ended up scattered about the globe and we briefly follow the trajectories of their emerging and varyingly chaotic adult identities. Then Rosaleen announces that she plans to sell the sprawling family home and each sibling makes their way home for a last Christmas at Ardeevin. Naturally, being together in this house of their childhood evokes a mélange of memories and jump-starts deeply held habits. "It was a question of texture, Dan thought, a whiff of your former self in a twist of fabric, a loose board. It was the reassuring madness of patterned wallpaper under the daily shift of light. The sun rose at the front and set at the back of Ardeevin, wherever he was in the world, and when he came back, the house made sense in a way that nothing else did."
This is just one example of Enright's stunning writing; passages like this almost sneak past the reader because they are so interwoven throughout.
The novel loses one full star for the first chapter which resonated not one bit. Hannah, the primary character of the first chapter, never really comes into focus in the novel and this start fails to establish either ambience or tone. It loses another half star for the periodic failure of pacing; I don't always completely trust my brief spells of boredom with an otherwise very good novel, but I have to reflect that part of my reading experience in my rating. Still, though it's not quite great, I'm glad I read it.
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LibraryThing member thornton37814
Enright's Booker-prize long-listed novel is divided in two parts. In the first section, we meet each member of the Madigan family and see what is occurring in his or her life. In the second section, the family comes together at Christmas in their native Ireland when the mother is getting ready to
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sell the family home. Enright does a great job weaving their stories, sharing the family dynamics, creating tension, etc. However, the book itself was difficult for me personally because I intensely dislike profanity, and the author used entirely too much for my comfort. My mother would have told some of the characters, "You need to wash your mouth out with soap." There was one other aspect that greatly marred my pleasure of the novel -- the depiction of sexual relations in the novel. They were more graphic and immoral than my comfort level. Enright's writing itself is worthy of the Booker nomination, but my own Christian ideologies lowered my pleasure in reading it and ultimately the star ranking I gave it. Show Less
LibraryThing member Cariola
In the past, I've generally found Anne Enright's novels to be rather depressing. This one, too, has its dark moments, but it also has moments of love, hope, and humor. Rosaleen, an Irish woman in her 70s, has called her four children home for Christmas, telling them that she plans to sell the
The Green Road IS an Irish family saga, but one for modern times. It's also a deep exploration of the parent-child relationship and its lifelong consequences. Beautifully written and engaging, it has put Anne Enright back on the literary map for me.
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family home. The chapters move amongst Rosaleen and her four children, going from past events to the present. Each has tried but found it impossible to break ties with their needy (perhaps even selfish) but distanced mother. Dan, the eldest, first declared that he wanted to join the priesthood, then moved to North America; Emmett gravitated towards humanitarian work in South Africa. And while the two daughters stayed in Ireland, Hannah moved to Dublin, married, and took up a love affair with alcohol,, and Constance, who appears to be doing the best--married to a successful man, lovely children, large house--seems to be suffering most of all from her mother's constant demands and martyr-playing.The Green Road IS an Irish family saga, but one for modern times. It's also a deep exploration of the parent-child relationship and its lifelong consequences. Beautifully written and engaging, it has put Anne Enright back on the literary map for me.
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LibraryThing member Dianekeenoy
This is a book that I felt like I should have enjoyed more. I did finish it but grudgingly. The characters just got on my nerves which rarely happens with me. It won the Man Booker prize and other readers loved it so you should probably try it for yourself!
LibraryThing member juliecracchiolo
Longlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize
I wasn’t familiar with Anne Enright’s work before I was given The Green Road as a gift. The synopsis sounds wonderful:
From internationally acclaimed author Anne Enright comes a shattering novel set in a small town on Ireland's Atlantic coast. The Green
Spanning thirty years, The Green Road tells the story of Rosaleen, matriarch of the Madigans, a family on the cusp of either coming together or falling irreparably apart. As they grow up, Rosaleen's four children leave the west of Ireland for lives they could have never imagined in Dublin, New York, and Mali, West Africa. 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.
A profoundly moving work about a family's desperate attempt to recover the relationships they've lost and forge the ones they never had, The Green Road is Enright's most mature, accomplished, and unforgettable novel to date.
I even saved it until I had to spend some time in an airport. It starts out pretty good, but quickly goes downhill in my opinion. The beginning and the ending are the best parts.
The story starts in 1980 with Hanna, seemingly the youngest of the Madigan brood. Mom Rosaleen has taken to her bed after the oldest, Dan, announces he wants to become a priest. The story then shifts to focus on Dan. It is 1991. He is living in New York. Not sure what his occupation is as the story is more about his life as a gay man and the AIDS epidemic more than anything. The next section focuses on Constance, stilling living in Ireland, in 1997. She is at a hospital to determine if the lump in her breast is cancer. The next shift is on Emmet, who is, I think, a missionary in Mali in 2002. As I read these sections, I felt that Enright kept the reader at arm’s length. Then the story jumps back to the Madigan home for Christmas 2005.
The father, who we don’t see much of, died ten years (I think) earlier. Rosaleen is the same melodramatic matriarch that she was in Hanna’s section. There are no explanations of how the four ended up like they did, which made me feel disconnected to the character’s problems.
I give The Green Road 2 out of 5 stars.
I wasn’t familiar with Anne Enright’s work before I was given The Green Road as a gift. The synopsis sounds wonderful:
From internationally acclaimed author Anne Enright comes a shattering novel set in a small town on Ireland's Atlantic coast. The Green
Show More
Road is a tale of family and fracture, compassion and selfishness―a book about the gaps in the human heart and how we strive to fill them.Spanning thirty years, The Green Road tells the story of Rosaleen, matriarch of the Madigans, a family on the cusp of either coming together or falling irreparably apart. As they grow up, Rosaleen's four children leave the west of Ireland for lives they could have never imagined in Dublin, New York, and Mali, West Africa. 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.
A profoundly moving work about a family's desperate attempt to recover the relationships they've lost and forge the ones they never had, The Green Road is Enright's most mature, accomplished, and unforgettable novel to date.
I even saved it until I had to spend some time in an airport. It starts out pretty good, but quickly goes downhill in my opinion. The beginning and the ending are the best parts.
The story starts in 1980 with Hanna, seemingly the youngest of the Madigan brood. Mom Rosaleen has taken to her bed after the oldest, Dan, announces he wants to become a priest. The story then shifts to focus on Dan. It is 1991. He is living in New York. Not sure what his occupation is as the story is more about his life as a gay man and the AIDS epidemic more than anything. The next section focuses on Constance, stilling living in Ireland, in 1997. She is at a hospital to determine if the lump in her breast is cancer. The next shift is on Emmet, who is, I think, a missionary in Mali in 2002. As I read these sections, I felt that Enright kept the reader at arm’s length. Then the story jumps back to the Madigan home for Christmas 2005.
The father, who we don’t see much of, died ten years (I think) earlier. Rosaleen is the same melodramatic matriarch that she was in Hanna’s section. There are no explanations of how the four ended up like they did, which made me feel disconnected to the character’s problems.
I give The Green Road 2 out of 5 stars.
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LibraryThing member gbill
A brilliant portrait of the Madigan family, whose members are likeable enough individually, but which as a whole is pretty dysfunctional. Anne Enright’s writing is pure and searingly honest, and combines humor with her delightful Irish voice. The characters she creates are flawed but they’re
The four kids are Hannah, an aging actress and alcoholic, Dan, a priest who stepped down, and who took awhile in coming to terms with his sexuality, Emmett, who altruistically helps the poor in Africa, but struggles with his family, and Constance, who tries her best to be better than Rosaleen, the aging mother who is never satisfied with anything, and cannot seem to express the love she has for her family.
In part one, successive chapters focus on each of the kids and then Rosaleen, and also move us from 1980 to 2005. They’re all good, but the ones on Constance getting a breast exam, and Rosaleen, in older age with the kids gone, are stellar. At the end of part one, you have a great understanding of these people, and part two then has them all coming home for Christmas. As one character puts it, in an internal dialogue, “I am sorry. I can not invite you home for Christmas because I am Irish and my family is mad.”
Haven’t we all felt this way? At this gathering, the reversion to old family roles and sibling rivalries, the dialogue between people who truly know each other as no one else ever can, and the frustrations that come out at holiday time, is all told fantastically.
While it may sound dark and depressing, it’s really not. It shows the directions life may take for a family, with people scattering around the globe, struggling to find themselves, and yet all anchored in their memories of childhood. There are no horrible secrets here, no crimes or skeletons in the closet that Enright unveils that explain damaged personalities, and I think the novel is stronger because of it. Life is simply imperfect, and despite that, keeps moving forward.
As a side note, the family home is in County Clare, along the coast between the Cliffs of Moher and Galway, so this would be a good book to read while traveling in Ireland. Another is that Rosaleen quotes the poem ‘Dark Rosaleen’, written by James Clarence Mangan (1803-1849) as a veiled symbol for Irish Nationalism. As with all great fiction, the book has a highly distinctive voice, in this case Irish, and yet is universal. Highly recommended.
Quotes:
On art, and beauty:
“She found the woman in the red room and then another postcard from Dan, a thing by Kandinsky with two horseman against a background that was also red, and something about the stretch of the animals’ necks that showed the wildness and difficulty of the journey they were embarked upon.
Rosaleen held it up to the light.
Beauty, in glimpses and flashes, that is what the soul required. That was the drop of water on the tongue.”
On change:
“There are hours and days that change people, and they both had been changed. They were different people now.”
On children:
“Because Rosaleen was actually depressed, Constance thought, there was no other word for it. She was two years a widow and Constance felt her mother leaving, now, all the time.
‘So smug,’ she said, when Constance rattled on about the kids – which admittedly, she did non-stop.
‘So smug.’
Her own grandchildren.
Oh all your geese are swans.
And why not? Why not have children who were wonderful?”
On memories, and sex (this from the elderly Rosaleen):
“These young people with their little events below the waist, thinking they were just marvellous. Whatever it was Bill Clinton said about sexual relations, she couldn’t agree more, because when they were young and in their beauty, which was considerable, Rosaleen Considine and Pat Madigan went to bed for days. That was what she called sex. Days they spent. It was a lot more than pulling down your zip while you were talking on the phone.”
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nuanced, and human in the deepest sense of the word. The four kids are Hannah, an aging actress and alcoholic, Dan, a priest who stepped down, and who took awhile in coming to terms with his sexuality, Emmett, who altruistically helps the poor in Africa, but struggles with his family, and Constance, who tries her best to be better than Rosaleen, the aging mother who is never satisfied with anything, and cannot seem to express the love she has for her family.
In part one, successive chapters focus on each of the kids and then Rosaleen, and also move us from 1980 to 2005. They’re all good, but the ones on Constance getting a breast exam, and Rosaleen, in older age with the kids gone, are stellar. At the end of part one, you have a great understanding of these people, and part two then has them all coming home for Christmas. As one character puts it, in an internal dialogue, “I am sorry. I can not invite you home for Christmas because I am Irish and my family is mad.”
Haven’t we all felt this way? At this gathering, the reversion to old family roles and sibling rivalries, the dialogue between people who truly know each other as no one else ever can, and the frustrations that come out at holiday time, is all told fantastically.
While it may sound dark and depressing, it’s really not. It shows the directions life may take for a family, with people scattering around the globe, struggling to find themselves, and yet all anchored in their memories of childhood. There are no horrible secrets here, no crimes or skeletons in the closet that Enright unveils that explain damaged personalities, and I think the novel is stronger because of it. Life is simply imperfect, and despite that, keeps moving forward.
As a side note, the family home is in County Clare, along the coast between the Cliffs of Moher and Galway, so this would be a good book to read while traveling in Ireland. Another is that Rosaleen quotes the poem ‘Dark Rosaleen’, written by James Clarence Mangan (1803-1849) as a veiled symbol for Irish Nationalism. As with all great fiction, the book has a highly distinctive voice, in this case Irish, and yet is universal. Highly recommended.
Quotes:
On art, and beauty:
“She found the woman in the red room and then another postcard from Dan, a thing by Kandinsky with two horseman against a background that was also red, and something about the stretch of the animals’ necks that showed the wildness and difficulty of the journey they were embarked upon.
Rosaleen held it up to the light.
Beauty, in glimpses and flashes, that is what the soul required. That was the drop of water on the tongue.”
On change:
“There are hours and days that change people, and they both had been changed. They were different people now.”
On children:
“Because Rosaleen was actually depressed, Constance thought, there was no other word for it. She was two years a widow and Constance felt her mother leaving, now, all the time.
‘So smug,’ she said, when Constance rattled on about the kids – which admittedly, she did non-stop.
‘So smug.’
Her own grandchildren.
Oh all your geese are swans.
And why not? Why not have children who were wonderful?”
On memories, and sex (this from the elderly Rosaleen):
“These young people with their little events below the waist, thinking they were just marvellous. Whatever it was Bill Clinton said about sexual relations, she couldn’t agree more, because when they were young and in their beauty, which was considerable, Rosaleen Considine and Pat Madigan went to bed for days. That was what she called sex. Days they spent. It was a lot more than pulling down your zip while you were talking on the phone.”
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LibraryThing member RidgewayGirl
This is one of those quiet, understated novels that I always have trouble reviewing. It's centered around a family of grown children and their widowed mother, and it's written so plainly and effortlessly that I suspect quite a lot of work went into the writing. The first section of the book is a
The Green Road has been long listed for the Man Booker Prize and it is well deserved.
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collection of short stories, each centering on a different member of the family. They stand alone, except that the reader knows that each protagonist is a member of the Madigan family, and each is very different from the others. The second section of the book brings them together for a final Christmas in the family home, in which old patterns continue to hold steady, even as new conflicts arise. The Green Road has been long listed for the Man Booker Prize and it is well deserved.
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LibraryThing member alexrichman
A very enjoyable book about family and fuck-ups. You really do fall for all the characters, despite their (not inconsiderable) flaws, and want everything to turn out all right. At first I was disappointed that we didn't learn more about the Madigans' matriarch, who only really comes alive at the
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end of the book - but perhaps this is intentional, allowing us to see her as her children do, with a life lived we know little about. It also invites the reader to make up their own minds whether her complaints about her family are justified or not. Would definitely recommend. Show Less
LibraryThing member gayla.bassham
I liked this quite a lot -- I'm not always crazy about Anne Enright's work, but The Green Road really worked for me. The characters were all fully fleshed-out--I thought Dan and Constance were particularly well handled--and the second half of the book manages to have both an elegiac quality and a
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shot of sly humor. And as always with Enright, the writing is beautifully elegant. Show Less
LibraryThing member wagner.sarah35
This is a good book to read during the holiday season, as it's structured around a family (which sometimes gathers for Christmas and sometimes doesn't) and their struggles both with each other and with their lives outside the family. While not always heartwarming, many of the themes touched on
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would be familiar to those who struggle with older family members and younger ones who live at distance. Show Less
LibraryThing member MaggieG13
This novel was longlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize. Anne Enright won the 2007 Man Booker for "The Gathering." Recently, she was named Laureate of Prose in Ireland. This book is depressing even for Irish drama. The four children's adult lives are described in Part One, "Leaving Home." Each is
"Coming Home" is Part Two. Their dysfunction and emotional shutdown continues, despite the familiar surroundings and the presence of their old schoolmates and chums from childhood. Nothing seems to reach these people. They are a wretched lot. Self-absorbed is too kind a term. An event occurs which leads to some sense of family coming together.
The writing is good. I am assuming that Enright purposefully wrote most of these characters in a disjointed, fragmented prose to emphasize their inner turmoil and congested minds. It makes it difficult to follow some of their stories, especially Hanna. None of these people will give you the warm fuzzies and the only one I cheered for at all was Constance, her husband Dessie and their 3 normal children. It is slightly more than 200 pages and even with the awkward prose, it is a rather quick read. Chances are that reading this book will make you feel much better about your own family life.
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in a different geographic locale with only eldest daughter Constance still living locally near their mother. Surprisingly, Constance has the most normal life of any of them and is the most content. Dan, who announced in the first chapter, when he was 18 years old, that he was going to be a priest, thus making his mother Rosaleen take to bed for two weeks, is now in New York City, trying to reconcile his homosexuality with the love he has for his girlfriend Isabelle. Emmett is in Africa, saving the world with a team of medical care professionals, experiencing a very dysfunctional relationship his live-in Alice. Hanna the youngest is an unsuccessful actress whose expertise lies in substance abuse. Her husband Hugh takes over the care of their infant son when she proves inadequate to the task. Rosaleen sends all four children Christmas cards with the notation that they should come home because she is selling their home and wants to give each of them a share of the proceeds. "Coming Home" is Part Two. Their dysfunction and emotional shutdown continues, despite the familiar surroundings and the presence of their old schoolmates and chums from childhood. Nothing seems to reach these people. They are a wretched lot. Self-absorbed is too kind a term. An event occurs which leads to some sense of family coming together.
The writing is good. I am assuming that Enright purposefully wrote most of these characters in a disjointed, fragmented prose to emphasize their inner turmoil and congested minds. It makes it difficult to follow some of their stories, especially Hanna. None of these people will give you the warm fuzzies and the only one I cheered for at all was Constance, her husband Dessie and their 3 normal children. It is slightly more than 200 pages and even with the awkward prose, it is a rather quick read. Chances are that reading this book will make you feel much better about your own family life.
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LibraryThing member yooperprof
Domestic comedy and drama in a middle-class Irish family from County Clare, from 1980 to the early 2000s, focused upon a spirited but rather scattered matriarch and her four "high-functioning" children.
Here Enright deals with serious themes but maintains a light touch, which made reading this novel
Here Enright deals with serious themes but maintains a light touch, which made reading this novel
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a pleasant experience for me. In particular, I really liked her depiction of the several gay characters. (It didn't bother me that the "The Green Road" is episodic in structure, and the first half of the book reads like a sequence of linked short stories.) Show Less
LibraryThing member aine.fin
Book Club June 2015. Was kind of dreading reading this as I normally find Enright hard-going but I flew through this, which was a pleasant surprise. Story of four children and their mother told through various incidents from their lives. Stunning depiction of the awfulness of the mother -
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desperately needy yet impossible to please. Enjoyed the elder daughter's story best with her brush with cancer. Show Less
LibraryThing member thewanderingjew
The Green Road, Anne Enright, author; Lloyd James, Alana Kerr, Gerard Doyle, narrators
I felt that this book was beautifully written and read. It takes place in Ireland, and the narrators mastered the brogue perfectly, using warm and expressive tones, bringing each character to life. The author
The beautiful green road lies just beyond the family homestead and it will lure the family members to it as the years go by, sometimes bringing joy and sometimes anxiety. What it represents will be up to each reader to decide. For me, I think it was the changing lifestyles and world around them, regardless of whether or not the change was desired. As with all things in life, their homestead represented a place of solace for some and distress for others. Life did not stand still for any of them, and none could have anticipated what lie in wait at the end of their road or when their road would end.
In the first part of the book, called “Leaving”, each of the characters, Dan, Constance, Emmet, Hannah and their mother Rosaleen, have their own chapter to relate their individual, personal side of this story, beginning in 1980. At this time, both parents are alive, Hannah is 12, Emmet is 16, Dan is away at school and Constance is independent, working in Dublin. The gift of this author was to make each telling different so that the story did not have the feeling of repetition, but rather the feeling of revelation.
The second part of the book begins in 2005, after decades have passed, and each of the siblings is in their late thirties and early 40’s; Rosaleen, is in her late 70’s. They return home from different parts of the world, for Xmas dinner, to be with their widowed mother who has informed them that she will be selling the house and moving in with her daughter. Sparks begin to fly. It had been years since they all gathered together, yet they all still harbored bitter resentments about one thing or another. They had hidden pasts, hidden relationships, secrets they did not wish to share, and often, all of these repressed feelings surged forth and caused a tremendous explosion of emotion.
When Rosaleen continued to try and exert control, as if they were children, telling each what they had to or should do, subtly picking at their hidden faults to weaken them, trying to manipulate the situation which was her special talent, she suddenly found herself abandoned, utterly alone and without support; at least that is how Rosaleen perceived it. As with all families, each member perceives wrongdoing from their own perspective. It was from this moment, though, that The Green Road takes them all to a point of awareness and acceptance of their lives, with all of its implications, to a point of maturity that had not heretofore been seen. Rosaleen draws the conclusion that she has paid too little attention to her children, a fact I think they would surely dispute, because it wasn’t really about attention, it was more about the kind of attention she gave to each family member that caused friction for years and guilt and resentment for some. As their reactions are studied and exposed, the reader will discover that Rosaleen was prone to complaining and was not very easily satisfied; Dan, was often kind and compassionate, but was unsure of his sexuality and his religious beliefs; Hannah, always wore her insecurities with a mask of anger and escaped them with drink; Emmet’s emotions were in conflict as he traveled all over the world helping others, although he also harbored cruel thoughts, as he searched for a way to help himself and to discover the reason he had difficulty loving another; and Constance tried to satisfy the needs of everyone else, often at the expense of herself, in order to satisfy some need of her own. The fears and prejudices of each of the characters, the relationships between each sibling and others in the outside world, the parent and child conflicts and expectations, the lifestyle views of the young and old, ill and healthy, are all thrust into the readers’ minds with poignant descriptions that will touch not only their minds, but also their hearts.
There is a brief discussion about the years of the Aids epidemic which touched me deeply. I remember those years with such pain because of the number of victims that were lost and the loneliness they experienced as they were shunned by an overly fearful society. Anyone who knew anyone who had the disease will relive the experience as the author writes it out. I can still see the wraithlike forms of the victims as they marched alone, down hospital corridors, sat alone in hospital cafeterias, died alone with few people around them who were unafraid to touch them. Perhaps the best quality of this book is how it transformed hopelessness into hope, in so many of the lives of the characters, and how it showed that hope does spring eternal even in the face of utter disaster!
I felt that this book was beautifully written and read. It takes place in Ireland, and the narrators mastered the brogue perfectly, using warm and expressive tones, bringing each character to life. The author
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captured their speaking style and dialogue so well, that the various expressions used will sometimes make the reader’s lips curl upwards in a smile or downward in a frown, as they are drawn right into the narrative. It is an in depth study of a family, over a little more than a quarter of a century, as each member faces the life and death issues all families will face over the years. How they deal with each other, the issues, and also themselves is thoroughly explored. The family alternately deteriorates and reconstitutes itself, rising and falling with life’s events. Here is sibling rivalry, in the flesh, parent-child favoritism, conflicts with sexuality, religion, and bias, writ large upon the page. The reader will get to know each character well, and will like some and completely dislike others. Some are needier, some are martyrs, some are downright annoying, but all are real, all have parts of themselves each reader will be able to identify with, and/or empathize with, as they experience life’s trials. The processes of maturing and of aging are given equal stress. Each phase of life has its moments. The act of discovering oneself often occurs in the oddest places and times. Who are we really, and how will we act in a time of crisis? In this book, we will discover how some run from trouble and some race toward it.The beautiful green road lies just beyond the family homestead and it will lure the family members to it as the years go by, sometimes bringing joy and sometimes anxiety. What it represents will be up to each reader to decide. For me, I think it was the changing lifestyles and world around them, regardless of whether or not the change was desired. As with all things in life, their homestead represented a place of solace for some and distress for others. Life did not stand still for any of them, and none could have anticipated what lie in wait at the end of their road or when their road would end.
In the first part of the book, called “Leaving”, each of the characters, Dan, Constance, Emmet, Hannah and their mother Rosaleen, have their own chapter to relate their individual, personal side of this story, beginning in 1980. At this time, both parents are alive, Hannah is 12, Emmet is 16, Dan is away at school and Constance is independent, working in Dublin. The gift of this author was to make each telling different so that the story did not have the feeling of repetition, but rather the feeling of revelation.
The second part of the book begins in 2005, after decades have passed, and each of the siblings is in their late thirties and early 40’s; Rosaleen, is in her late 70’s. They return home from different parts of the world, for Xmas dinner, to be with their widowed mother who has informed them that she will be selling the house and moving in with her daughter. Sparks begin to fly. It had been years since they all gathered together, yet they all still harbored bitter resentments about one thing or another. They had hidden pasts, hidden relationships, secrets they did not wish to share, and often, all of these repressed feelings surged forth and caused a tremendous explosion of emotion.
When Rosaleen continued to try and exert control, as if they were children, telling each what they had to or should do, subtly picking at their hidden faults to weaken them, trying to manipulate the situation which was her special talent, she suddenly found herself abandoned, utterly alone and without support; at least that is how Rosaleen perceived it. As with all families, each member perceives wrongdoing from their own perspective. It was from this moment, though, that The Green Road takes them all to a point of awareness and acceptance of their lives, with all of its implications, to a point of maturity that had not heretofore been seen. Rosaleen draws the conclusion that she has paid too little attention to her children, a fact I think they would surely dispute, because it wasn’t really about attention, it was more about the kind of attention she gave to each family member that caused friction for years and guilt and resentment for some. As their reactions are studied and exposed, the reader will discover that Rosaleen was prone to complaining and was not very easily satisfied; Dan, was often kind and compassionate, but was unsure of his sexuality and his religious beliefs; Hannah, always wore her insecurities with a mask of anger and escaped them with drink; Emmet’s emotions were in conflict as he traveled all over the world helping others, although he also harbored cruel thoughts, as he searched for a way to help himself and to discover the reason he had difficulty loving another; and Constance tried to satisfy the needs of everyone else, often at the expense of herself, in order to satisfy some need of her own. The fears and prejudices of each of the characters, the relationships between each sibling and others in the outside world, the parent and child conflicts and expectations, the lifestyle views of the young and old, ill and healthy, are all thrust into the readers’ minds with poignant descriptions that will touch not only their minds, but also their hearts.
There is a brief discussion about the years of the Aids epidemic which touched me deeply. I remember those years with such pain because of the number of victims that were lost and the loneliness they experienced as they were shunned by an overly fearful society. Anyone who knew anyone who had the disease will relive the experience as the author writes it out. I can still see the wraithlike forms of the victims as they marched alone, down hospital corridors, sat alone in hospital cafeterias, died alone with few people around them who were unafraid to touch them. Perhaps the best quality of this book is how it transformed hopelessness into hope, in so many of the lives of the characters, and how it showed that hope does spring eternal even in the face of utter disaster!
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LibraryThing member SarahStenhouse
Great book, told from five different family members stories. Worth checking for others by this author. Thoughtful and thought provoking.
LibraryThing member janismack
The writing in the book flowed nicely and it was interesting to hear from many characters regarding their upbringing. This will not be a memorable book in my mind but I did read it. It left me with a sort of non-opinion.
LibraryThing member tangledthread
The story takes place on the west coast of Ireland and is really a story about a matriarch, Rosaleen Madigan, and her four children. In the first half of the book, we are given brief back stories on each of the 4 children who have scattered from the family home as fars as the U.S. and Africa.
The second half of the book deals with a Christmas homecoming that Rosaleen has called, inviting all four children home. It is telling that the homecoming does not include the significant others of the children, except for the oldest daughter, Constance, who true to her name has become Rosaleen's care taker.
In summary, it is a well written dysfunctional Irish family story. Enright creates her characters in the circle of a harsh spotlight: all beauty marks and flaws are on display.
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Starting with Hannah, the youngest, the reader gets the first glimpse of Rosaleen. She has taken to her bed in protest of Dan's (oldest son's) announcement that he is joining the priesthood. We are given to conclude that this isn't the first time she's done so as it is named her "horizontal solution".The second half of the book deals with a Christmas homecoming that Rosaleen has called, inviting all four children home. It is telling that the homecoming does not include the significant others of the children, except for the oldest daughter, Constance, who true to her name has become Rosaleen's care taker.
In summary, it is a well written dysfunctional Irish family story. Enright creates her characters in the circle of a harsh spotlight: all beauty marks and flaws are on display.
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LibraryThing member bobbieharv
How she keeps writing such beautiful prose is amazing. Loved the structure of the book: in the first section we see each family member individually, glimpsing particularly meaningful times in each of their lives; in the second we see them together with the family matriarch. Just a wonderful read.
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Can't believe some reviewers find her hard going! Show Less
LibraryThing member gypsysmom
I thought I would like this book more than I did. It was on the short list for the 2015 Man Booker prize, it takes place (mostly) in Ireland, the writer is one that I have admired before but this book just felt flat to me. None of the characters seemed to really feel anything but they analyzed what
The Madigans grew up in the west of Ireland near Galway. There were four children: Constance, Dan, Emmett and Hanna. The mother, Rosaleen, had married down. She was from a well-to-do family and Pat Madigan was a smallholding farmer. When Dan announces that he intends to be a priest his mother takes to her bed and the whole family tiptoes around the house. Rosaleen eventually rises from her bed but the threat of emotional withdrawal remains. Years later when Rosaleen is a widow and has decided to sell the family home all the family returns for Christmas. Each child brings along their emotional baggage and Rosaleen doesn't really care what is going on with them. This time she withdraws by leaving for a walk and not returning so that everyone has to go out searching for her in the cold and dark. Can you say dysfunctional family?
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they weren't feeling endlessly. The Madigans grew up in the west of Ireland near Galway. There were four children: Constance, Dan, Emmett and Hanna. The mother, Rosaleen, had married down. She was from a well-to-do family and Pat Madigan was a smallholding farmer. When Dan announces that he intends to be a priest his mother takes to her bed and the whole family tiptoes around the house. Rosaleen eventually rises from her bed but the threat of emotional withdrawal remains. Years later when Rosaleen is a widow and has decided to sell the family home all the family returns for Christmas. Each child brings along their emotional baggage and Rosaleen doesn't really care what is going on with them. This time she withdraws by leaving for a walk and not returning so that everyone has to go out searching for her in the cold and dark. Can you say dysfunctional family?
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LibraryThing member oldblack
A very fine novel, in my opinion. The story of an aging Irish matriarch and her family as they come together at christmas from their disparate locations and lifestyles. A reader might ask how the one family could have children who became so different from each other, but I'm here to tell that
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reader that this is a reality I see from looking at my own children. In Enright's story I think we can start to see the unifying factors as the children are separately presented, but as they come together for christmas their connections (as well as their differences) become more apparent. Each of these characters is entirely believable to me, as well as their connection to a land that I have only read about. For lovers of books with lots of action and a page-turning plot with a neatly wrapped up ending - forget it! This is not the book for you. You want to reflect on yourself, your family, and the aging and maturing process? Yep, go for it. Show Less
LibraryThing member bodachliath
I have read several of Anne Enright's books, and this might just be her best yet. At its heart is Rosaleen, an elderly widow who has alienated each of her four children in different ways and lives alone in the family home in Clare on the west coast of Ireland. I have to admit that the early parts
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of the book were less than compulsive, as Enright devotes an extended chapter to each of the four children at different stages of their lives to develop the characters, but once the family comes together for one last Christmas (which can be read as a masterly black comic set piece), it becomes a riveting read, full of wisdom, humour and drama, and the writing throughout is memorable. Highly recommended. Show Less
LibraryThing member Beamis12
From the beginning I was fascinated with the character of Rosaleen, this family matriarch of four, living in an unnamed village in County Clare. When her eldest son Doug tells the family he is going to be a priest, she takes to her bed for days. Two boys, two girls and we follow this family
As for Rosaleen she waits, using passive aggressive techniques to make them feel guilty and to blame for her loneliness and unhappiness. Reminded me so much of my Irish mother-in-law, which is why I found her character and her parenting techniques so interesting. But then towards the end, when we hear her story, I began to feel sad for her.
We follow Dan to New York during the days of the aids crisis, Emmett to South Africa, Hannah as she has a child and a drinking problem and Constance, the child who stays the closest in distance to her mother.
This is on all ways a novel about the complications of being part of a family. The grudges, the memories good and bad, the misunderstandings and the misunderstandings we carry through to adulthood. What the idea of family and the family home means to different members.
A very well written, thought provoking read. One I think most readers will find something inside in which they can relate.
ARC from publisher.
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throughout three decades. As with all siblings they take many different paths,live in different countries, and we hear from each of them.As for Rosaleen she waits, using passive aggressive techniques to make them feel guilty and to blame for her loneliness and unhappiness. Reminded me so much of my Irish mother-in-law, which is why I found her character and her parenting techniques so interesting. But then towards the end, when we hear her story, I began to feel sad for her.
We follow Dan to New York during the days of the aids crisis, Emmett to South Africa, Hannah as she has a child and a drinking problem and Constance, the child who stays the closest in distance to her mother.
This is on all ways a novel about the complications of being part of a family. The grudges, the memories good and bad, the misunderstandings and the misunderstandings we carry through to adulthood. What the idea of family and the family home means to different members.
A very well written, thought provoking read. One I think most readers will find something inside in which they can relate.
ARC from publisher.
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LibraryThing member jwhenderson
The Green Road is a family narrative told through place and time. The writing demonstrates real lives filled with compassion and selfishness and effortlessly carries the reader forward. It is a thoroughly Irish book that considers issues both modern and traditional through that lens. Our Thursday
The story unfolds over decades with the first half of the book constructed from vignettes that might stand on their own as short stories. These stories explore the lives of the children of Rosaleen, matriarch of the Madigans, a family on the cusp of either coming together or falling irreparably apart. Each of the four Madigan children and their mother Rosaleen receive a chapter of their own beginning with Hannah Madigan. Hannah's chapter focuses on a family member as a child and deals with her relationship with her father. She is traumatized by viewing the culling of a chicken for dinner on her grandmother's farm. Dan Madigan's story jumps forward to 1991 during his time in New York with his fiance as his repressed homosexuality comes to the fore during the AIDS epidemic. He gradually accepts his life and begins living in Canada with a life partner. Constance Madigan's chapter is based in 1997 Limerick and considers her domestic roles of mother and wife. She is seen balancing the concerns of her health that make her face her own mortality. Emmet has traveled to Mali in 2002 and works with impoverished children even as he is haunted by previous relief work he has been involved with. All the while his relationships are slowly deteriorating.
Rosaleen, in her early old age, 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. The second part of the book focuses on this homecoming as the story comes together through a combination of memories and family interactions. This was the best section of the book for this reader. It is where the home becomes a character as much as the Matriarch and her children.
The book is a pleasure to read through the story of the family and the author's beautiful prose. The story about a family's desperate attempt to recover the relationships they've lost and forge the ones they never had becomes a profoundly moving work.
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night book group enjoyed it for a variety of reasons that led to a lively discussion. I found the writing style and the structure of the book the best aspects, even while some of the characters, not all, were somewhat opaque. The story explored both the gaps in the human heart and family tensions in our modern age. The story unfolds over decades with the first half of the book constructed from vignettes that might stand on their own as short stories. These stories explore the lives of the children of Rosaleen, matriarch of the Madigans, a family on the cusp of either coming together or falling irreparably apart. Each of the four Madigan children and their mother Rosaleen receive a chapter of their own beginning with Hannah Madigan. Hannah's chapter focuses on a family member as a child and deals with her relationship with her father. She is traumatized by viewing the culling of a chicken for dinner on her grandmother's farm. Dan Madigan's story jumps forward to 1991 during his time in New York with his fiance as his repressed homosexuality comes to the fore during the AIDS epidemic. He gradually accepts his life and begins living in Canada with a life partner. Constance Madigan's chapter is based in 1997 Limerick and considers her domestic roles of mother and wife. She is seen balancing the concerns of her health that make her face her own mortality. Emmet has traveled to Mali in 2002 and works with impoverished children even as he is haunted by previous relief work he has been involved with. All the while his relationships are slowly deteriorating.
Rosaleen, in her early old age, 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. The second part of the book focuses on this homecoming as the story comes together through a combination of memories and family interactions. This was the best section of the book for this reader. It is where the home becomes a character as much as the Matriarch and her children.
The book is a pleasure to read through the story of the family and the author's beautiful prose. The story about a family's desperate attempt to recover the relationships they've lost and forge the ones they never had becomes a profoundly moving work.
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Awards
Booker Prize (Longlist — 2015)
Women's Prize for Fiction (Longlist — 2016)
Dublin Literary Award (Shortlist — 2017)
Costa Book Awards (Shortlist — Novel — 2015)
LA Times Book Prize (Finalist — Fiction — 2015)
Irish Book Award (Winner — Novel — 2015)
Independent Booksellers' Book Prize (Winner — Adult — 2016)
Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction (Longlist — Fiction — 2016)
The British Book Industry Awards (Shortlist — Fiction — 2016)
Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award (Winner — 2016)
Books Are My Bag Readers Award (Shortlist — Fiction — 2016)
Publishers Weekly's Best Books of the Year (Fiction — 2015)
The Observer Book of the Year (Fiction — 2015)
Globe and Mail Top 100 Book (2015)
ALA Over the Rainbow Book List (Selection — Fiction — 2016)
Language
Original publication date
2015 (1e édition originale anglaise
2017-03-01 (1e traduction et édition Française, Acres Sud)