Shortlisted for the 2015 Costa Novel Award Longlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize 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 ...
Read More
Shortlisted for the 2015 Costa Novel Award Longlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize 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.
Read Less
Add this copy of The Green Road to cart. $1.27, good condition, Sold by More Than Words rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Waltham, MA, UNITED STATES, published 2016 by Vintage.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Good. . All orders guaranteed and ship within 24 hours. Your purchase supports More Than Words, a nonprofi9780393706468 t job training program for youth, empowering youth to take charge of their lives by taking charge of a business.
Add this copy of The Green Road: a Novel to cart. $1.41, good condition, Sold by Books For Life rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Laurel, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2015 by W. W. Norton & Company.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Book is in good condition. Minimal signs of wear. It May have markings or highlights but kept to only a few pages. May not come with supplemental materials if applicable.
Add this copy of The Green Road: a Novel to cart. $1.61, good condition, Sold by Off The Shelf rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Imperial, MO, UNITED STATES, published 2016 by W. W. Norton & Company.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
The item shows wear from consistent use, but it remains in good condition and works perfectly. All pages and cover are intact (including the dust cover, if applicable). Spine may show signs of wear. Pages may include limited notes and highlighting. May NOT include discs, access code or other supplemental materials.
Add this copy of The Green Road: a Novel to cart. $1.84, very good condition, Sold by The Maryland Book Bank rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from baltimore, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2016 by W. W. Norton & Company.
Add this copy of The Green Road: a Novel to cart. $1.84, good condition, Sold by The Maryland Book Bank rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from baltimore, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2016 by W. W. Norton & Company.
Add this copy of The Green Road to cart. $1.85, good condition, Sold by OnlineGoodwill rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Nashville, TN, UNITED STATES, published 2016 by W. W. Norton & Company.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Good. A copy that has been read, but remains in clean condition. All pages are solid. the cover is intact, but may show scuffs or light creases, as well as a possible rolled corner. The spine may show signs of wear. Pages may include limited notes and highlighting, The former owner may have written their name inside the front or back cover. COVER WILL VARY.
Add this copy of The Green Road: a Novel to cart. $1.86, fair condition, Sold by Goodwill rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Brooklyn Park, MN, UNITED STATES, published 2016 by W. W. Norton & Company.
Add this copy of The Green Road: a Novel to cart. $1.92, fair condition, Sold by Orion Tech rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Arlington, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2015 by W. W. Norton & Company.
Add this copy of The Green Road: a Novel to cart. $1.93, good condition, Sold by More Than Words rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Waltham, MA, UNITED STATES, published 2015 by W. W. Norton & Company.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Good. Good. All orders guaranteed and ship within 24 hours. Your purchase supports More Than Words, a nonprofit job training program for youth, empowering youth to take charge of their lives by taking charge of a business.
Add this copy of The Green Road to cart. $1.99, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Atlanta rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Brownstown, MI, UNITED STATES, published 2016 by W. W. Norton & Company.
Three years ago, I attended my 50th high school reunion in Milwaukee and saw a city and many people I hadn't seen in years. I also saw the old family home in which I grew up with three brothers and my parents. It was a moving experience. My parents are dead and the four brothers have long been scattered in different American cities. It has been hard to maintain connection as we have gone on to separate lives.
I thought of the visit to my old home, my parents, and my brothers in reading Anne Enright's 2015 novel, "The Green Road". Set in contemporary Ireland, the book tells the story of widow, Rosaleen Madigan and her four children, each of whom goes their own way in life and loses any sense of whatever connection they may have had to their parents and siblings. Of the four children, two brothers and two sisters, one goes to the United States and Canada where he struggles with his gay sexual identity, while another does humanitarian medical work in Africa and Asia which he finds unsatisfying. The two daughters remain in Ireland where they try to make their way. Each individual life tends to be unfulfilled and unhappy, as is the mother's life.
The book is in two parts. The first part consists largely of stories devoted to each of the children separately as they pursue their lives. The second part consists of a family Christmas and its aftermath. Rosaleen brings the family together, bodily if in no other way, when she writes each child to inform them that she is selling the family home. The book shows the family members in their isolation and in their attempts to cohere with one another. A passage late in the novel captures the sense of unfulfilled lives.
"The truth was that the house they were sitting in was worth a ridiculous amount, and the people sitting in it were worth very little. Four children on the brink of middle age: the Madigans had no traction in the world, no substance. They had no money. Dan, especially, had no money, and he could not think why this was, or who might be to blame. But he recognised, in the silence, the power Rosaleen had over her children, none of whom had grown up to match her."
Another moody reflection from the other son follows this passage. Emmet is said to have "poured his life out, like water into the African sands. He felt it keenly -- they all did -- the lack of anything to show for it all. Twenty years saving a world that remained unsaved. If you thought about it, he was as much a fantasist as his dead mother."
This novel has weaknesses in that the book doesn't really hang together as a whole. In addition I never developed much feeling for any of the characters. The strengths of the book consist in individual, highly effective scenes and vignettes and in Enright's beautiful style. With its Irish setting, the book portrays a universal human situation.
The book prompted me to think of my visit to the family home described at the outset of the review. Then, it prompted me to visit the home again, as I was able to google the property and to learn what had happened with it -- the property had sold for a low price, was apparently remodeled inside from top to bottom and then resold for three times the price of the immediately prior sale. I thought of the fate of the little home and of the four brothers.
I was less than fully satisfied with this novel. Yet, reading the book brought back memories of my life and the lives of my brothers. I lingered on these memories and revived them again in the virtual visit I paid to the old house after reading the book. The book made its way into my thought and made me take some action in response. With that, the book ultimately worked for me.
