The Wren, The Wren

An incandescent novel about the inheritance of trauma, wonder, and love across three generations of women.

Nell McDaragh never knew her grandfather, the celebrated Irish poet Phil McDaragh. But his love poems seem to speak directly to her. Restless and wryly self-assured, at twenty-two Nell leaves her mother Carmel’s orderly home to find her own voice as a writer (mostly online, ghost-blogging for an influencer) and to live a poetical life. As she chases obsessive love, damage, and transcendence, in Dublin and beyond, her grandfather’s poetry seems to guide her home.

Nell’s mother, Carmel McDaragh, knows the magic of her Daddo’s poetry too well―the kind of magic that makes women in their nighties slip outside for a kiss and then elope, as her mother Terry had done. In his poems to Carmel, Phil envisions his daughter as a bright-eyed wren ascending in escape from his hand. But it is Phil who departs, abandoning his wife and two young daughters. Carmel struggles to reconcile “the poet” with the father whose desertion scars her life, along with that of her fiercely dutiful sister and their gentle, cancer-ridden mother. To distance herself from this betrayal, Carmel turns inward, raising Nell, her daughter, and one trusted love, alone.

The Wren, the Wren brings to life three generations of McDaragh women who must contend with inheritances―of poetic wonder and of abandonment by a man who is lauded in public and carelessly selfish at home. Their other, stronger inheritance is a sustaining love that is “more than a strand of DNA, but a rope thrown from the past, a fat twisted rope, full of blood.” In sharp prose studded with crystalline poetry, Anne Enright masterfully braids a family story of longing, betrayal, and hope.

"Art as an illusion, love as a trap, the stranglehold of family ties: these are themes that Enright has already made her own. They are not just reprised here but honed to an essential honesty. Line for line, no one is more skilled than Enright at unfolding an unsettling scene. The Wren, The Wren is ruthless, raw stuff."

― The Guardian

"The whip-smart latest from Booker winner Enright…fizzes with wit and bite. Enright’s discomfiting and glimmering narrative leans toward a poetic sense of hope."

― Publishers Weekly, starred review

"The exceptional, multigarlanded Irish writer returns with a three-generation, woman-centered family portrait marked by 'inheritance, of both trauma and of wonder,' and melodious, poetic echoes. Lyrical poems of birds punctuate the text, as do snatches of cruelty and violence between men and women, sisters, men and animals, even parents and children. But the familial connections are indelible and enduring. Tender and truthful as ever, Enright offers a beguiling journey to selfhood."

― Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"Enriched by searing if beautiful poetry, Enright’s beseeching novel thrums with desire, heartache, and connection."

― Booklist, starred review

"Gritty, sad, sly, riotous . . . [Enright’s] gem-packed language fizzes like a sidewalk firecracker."

― Margaret Atwood