The Green Road
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By Anne Enright
avg rating
2 reviews
A darkly glinting novel set on Ireland’s Atlantic coast. It tells the story of fracture and family, selfishness and compassion. It is also about the gaps in the human heart and how we learn to fill them.
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Floating amongst the emotionally strained Madigan family, particularly around Hannah, Enright has evoked a time and a place which sends shivers up and down your spine. Then she suddenly plunges us eleven years on with Dan in scared Aids-frightened New York: a totally different place and atmosphere. As a reader, I am caught. (Review by MJ)
Most of Part One I enjoyed and found the characterization convincing and the development of the various family members' personalities interesting. (Review by EJ on first half of the book)
I happily admit that I started this book with some trepidation as I had only read one other book by Anne Enright before (The Gathering) which I didn't enjoy at all. However I was very pleasantly surprised by this. I found myself drawn in, not by the major players in this book, but by its supporting characters. Billy in Dans story, the little dog and and Alice in Emmets story, these were the characters which spoke to me and moved me.
Because of this I preferred part one of the book to part two. Rosaleen and her children did not gain my sympathies so easily although I did enjoy the family interactions and the tensions between them all.
