lorrainelowereads 's review for:

The Green Road by Anne Enright

4.0

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I wasn't expecting to enjoy this book as much as I did. And the first chapter was along the lines of what I expected; 1980s Catholic rural Ireland with a lot of stark, read-between-the-lines language and I thought ‘Oh no’. But then chapter 2; we switch to an early 90s HIV/AIDS ravaged gay community in NYC and the whole feel of the book changes, and I loved it. It switches again as we go through all 4 adult children of Rosaleen Madigan before the story comes back to Co. Clare in 2005 where they are all back in the family home for the first time in a long time, and what turns out to be the last time. What I loved about Enright’s writing was the emotional #detail (aha!); it wasn’t always clear to me what was going on or what a particular conversation meant but the description of emotions was always spot on. And she really captured how complex sibling and child/mother relationships are. The parts where Rosaleen is reflecting on her two sons when they were young boys had me in tears. There were sentences bordering on Toni Morrison type beauty, and that is the highest praise I can give Enright.