RaveThe Columbia Journal... how things seem is the central conceit of theater and a concept that Enright, who has worked in theater and television, has addressed in her writing before. But Actress attempts to tackle these old questions at different angles and with a steadier hand than her earlier, rawer books ... Enright’s characterization of the contemporary graduate student is embarrassingly accurate, and indicative of the detailed ways she handles familiar figures, making them at once an archetype and fully formed ... Norah’s ability to inhabit these different narrative roles—memoirist, historian, novelist, daughter, mother, wife, child, and adult—is perhaps the novel’s greatest feat, even if her project is a flawed endeavor to begin with. Mothers, famous or not, are perpetually unknown to their daughters, and vice versa. But it’s an attempt that is not unfamiliar to long-term readers of Enright: her novels are constantly fascinated by families and the ways they tangle together and split apart ... Katherine and Norah’s schism is more of a hairline fracture, and seems remarkably run-of-the-mill, given the circumstances ... returns to a more meditative, meticulous tone, with those wonderful quirks of first-person narration that Enright captures so well. Enright has always had a talent for letting her narrators carry readers through their story the same way our brains carry on through our own memories: in patchy, seemingly detached bursts of imagery that never quite make narrative sense but manage to create a cohesive whole nonetheless. Perfect clarity is never what Enright is after; her game lies in simulating the experience of memory, of recreating a realistic relationship with the past, which, as we all know, never provides satisfactory closure ... This is not to claim that Actress is all narrative technique and no plot. In fact, the reason why Norah’s narration works is because Enright understands the maneuvers our brains make in order to avoid certain areas of memories. This creates suspense for the reader, who cannot know all that Norah is avoiding, even though the vague outline of the story is given in the first couple of pages ... The plot is far from incidental; it’s deliberate, detailed and revealed in subtle, sometimes startling ways. It’s no small accomplishment to have a story centered around a movie star going mad and keep the reader focused on the pithy details of earlobes and accents. But it’s these perfect details, often linked to the body, that turn what could be a soapy piece of fictional film trivia or a mere experiment in narrative form into a literally fleshy, fully realized novel ... On one hand, it seems to be a plotty, well-researched novel about the history of Irish theater, about women in film, about fame, about bad men and difficult love, about mothers and daughters decades ago and mothers and daughters now. But on the other hand, it is a crafty display of the strangeness of first-person narration. Norah’s voice is completely uninhibited, yet overly aware of its limitations; focused on its goal, but also flighty and human. A buoyant, delightfully flexible book, Actress at once fits comfortably in Enright’s canon, and seems to be answering old questions in new, unanticipated ways. If she snags a second Booker because of this book, I would hardly be surprised.
Tana French
RaveThe Columbia Journal\"At a basic plot level, The Witch Elm is, in its very bones, an immersive, thrilling mystery novel. It is a sprawling 509 pages, none of which feel unnecessary. The book takes its time to build its world and its intricacies, with revelations that, even as the novel accelerates to reach its climax, never feel rushed or convenient. But the real charm and success of this novel comes from its ability to create a compelling mystery that is entwined with narrative structure, which gives rise to real questions about identity, the nature of self-perception, and the limitations of being in your own head.\
