Anyone who has read Anne Enright’s previous work will know that this much loved Man Booker prize-winning author excels at map- ping the terrain of relationships. Enright’s new book The Green Road could be described as quintessentially Irish: being the story of the Madigan family complete with a domi- nant Irish Mammy matriarch, strained sibling and family relationships, as well as difficulties with alcohol, emotions and sexuality.
Beginning in 1980, the novel is written in episodic style; Enright explores the desires of each of the Madigan children to distance themselves from their origins, leaving West County Clare for Dublin, New York and humanitarian crises in Africa. When Mammy Rosaleen announces in 2005 that she plans on selling the family home, the children are drawn back again to spend one last Christmas there together. Written with sharply-observed detail and crisp prose, The Green Road is a difficult but rewarding novel.