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The Wren, the Wren

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The Wren, the Wren

By: Anne Enright
Narrated by: Anne Enright, Aoife Duffin, Owen Roe, Liza Ross
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2024.

Carmel had been alone all her life. She had been alone since she was twelve years old. The baby knew all this. They looked at each other; one life into another life, and the baby knew exactly how alone her mother had been.

Nell - funny, brave and so much loved - is a young woman with adventure on her mind. As she sets out into the world, she finds her family history hard to escape. For her mother, Carmel, Nell's leaving home opens a space in her heart, where the turmoil of a lifetime begins to churn. And across the generations falls the long shadow of Carmel's famous father, an Irish poet of beautiful words and brutal actions.

This is a meditation on love: spiritual, romantic, darkly sexual or genetic. A generational saga that traces the inheritance not just of trauma but also of wonder, it is a testament to the glorious resilience of women in the face of promises false and true. Above all, it is an exploration of the love between mother and daughter - sometimes fierce, often painful, but always transcendent.

©2023 Anne Enright (P)2023 Penguin Audio Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Heartfelt Funny

Critic Reviews

The Wren, The Wren is a magnificent novel. Anne Enright's stylistic brilliance seems to put the reader directly in touch with her characters and the rich territory of their lives (Sally Rooney, author of NORMAL PEOPLE)
These pages practically crackle with intelligence, compassion and wit. Phil McDaragh is so real I almost googled him. The Wren, The Wren might just be Anne Enright's best yet (Louise Kennedy, author of Trespasses)

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Profile Image for Anonymous User

beautiful language

i really enjoyed listening to this book. I liked the different narrators for the main characters plus the poetry and stories interspersed between sections. I also found the description of birds very evocative.
The connection and relationships between the women, their lives and Phil's influence and legacy on them individually and how they related to each other cemented the book together really well.

I commend the author and will seek out other books she has written.



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Boring, droning narration

An otherwise superb book was ruined by the narration. The intricacy of the writing was all but submerged into the sludge of the principal narrator's voice. I should have just read the book.

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So Irish!

Beautifully written and read. A story of love in a multigenerational family, told with great insight

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