The children of Rosaleen Madigan leave the west of Ireland for lives in Dublin, New York and various third-world towns. In her early old age, Rosaleen announces that she's selling the family home and dividing the proceeds, and her adult children return for one last Christmas. From the Booker Prize winning author of THE GATHERING comes a novel of fracture and family, selfishness and compassion.



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.