Claire Lowdon

A potent seam of violence: The Wren, the Wren, by Anne Enright, reviewed

A dead poet’s dangerous aura continues to haunt his daughter and 23-year old granddaughter in this story of an unhappy family set in rapidly changing Ireland

Anne Enright. [Leonardo Cendamo/ Getty Images] 
issue 02 September 2023
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  • The Wren, the Wren

    Anne Enright

    Jonathan Cape, pp. 209, £18

The Irish novelist Anne Enright is now in her sixties. Her deceptively modest new novel, The Wren, The Wren, opens with a long section narrated by Nell, a woman in her early twenties living in contemporary Dublin. Nell scrapes by, ‘writing content non-stop’: travel pieces about places she’s never been to, stories for a wealthy ‘actress/eco-influencer’.

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