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How long does it take to read The Gathering?

Anne Enright

The Gathering by Anne Enright takes about 4 hours 53 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.

About 4 hours 53 minutes

A weekend read

First published 2007. 266 pages, about 73,150 words.

10 days at 30 minutes a day

Estimate based on 275 words per page.

At other speeds

Slow, 150 words a minute 8 hours 8 minutes
Average, 250 words a minute 4 hours 53 minutes
Fast, 400 words a minute 3 hours 3 minutes

The page count is the median across 29 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.

About the book

Anne Enright is a dazzling writer of international stature and one of Ireland’s most singular voices. Now she delivers The Gathering, a moving, evocative portrait of a large Irish family and a shot of fresh blood into the Irish literary tradition, combining the lyricism of the old with the shock of the new. The nine surviving children of the Hegarty clan are gathering in Dublin for the wake of their wayward brother, Liam, drowned in the sea. His sister, Veronica, collects the body and keeps the dead man company, guarding the secret she shares with him—something that happened in their grandmother’s house in the winter of 1968. As Enright traces the line of betrayal and redemption through three generations her distinctive intelligence twists the world a fraction and gives it back to us in a new and unforgettable light. The Gathering is a daring, witty, and insightful family epic, clarified through Anne Enright’s unblinking eye. It is a novel about love and disappointment, about how memories warp and secrets fester, and how fate is written in the body, not in the stars.

Subjects: Family secrets, Fiction, Man Booker Prize Winner, Family, Social life and customs, Families

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