by Anne Enright
First published 2015
Rosaleen Madigan has watched her children flee the west of Ireland for new lives across the globe. One found work in Dublin, another moved to New York, while others settled in distant developing nations. Now in her early old age, this demanding yet beloved mother makes a shocking announcement. She will sell the family house and split the money among them all. The news forces her adult children to return home for one final Christmas together. They arrive carrying decades of separate experiences, facing the reality that their childhood refuge will disappear. The house sale feels like an erasure of their shared past, turning intimate memories into a financial transaction. As the family gathers, old tensions surface alongside deep affection. Each sibling must confront what they left behind and what they gained by leaving. The story reveals how families fracture across continents yet remain bound by invisible threads of love and resentment.
Genres: literary-fiction, domestic-fiction, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: coming-of-age, family-drama
Setting: Ireland, New York, Dublin, West of Ireland
Period: Early Old Age
312 pages · Paperback · Vintage Books