Anne Enright Week

It was her comments on the Madeline McCann case that caught my eye.

She's gotten a lot of heat for a thoughtful essay with a seemingly callous observation: that she didn't like the looks of that poor little girl's mother. I'll not defend nor attack that. But it did arrest me. As did Dwight Garner's breezy, friendly sense that we'd all been reading along for some time now.

And then, her name appeals to me, narcissistically: when your name is Anne Fernald (as mine is), Anne Enright has a nice, familiar look to it. It makes her seem, embarrassing to say, like an already-known personage.

But, narcissism aside, writing attracts me because of voice and there was something arresting about Anne Enright’s voice. And for me, motherhood has done nothing so much as humble me and shatter my sense of competence and confidence, so it’s always a delight to read the voices of mothers who still speak boldly. I seek and devour them as a kind of tonic. So, I put The Gathering on my amazon.com wishlist and then, there it was, under the Christmas tree. (My mother-in-law is an enterprising and computer-savvy reader, bless her!)

What a great, great book.

So, this is Enright week here at Fernham. I hope some of you are fans, too and will pop in to say hello...