The Wig My Father Wore

Man Booker winner Anne Enright's moving and darkly funny debut novel of sex, death and reproduction, reissued in a beautiful new series styleMan Booker winner Anne Enright's moving and darkly funny debut novel of sex, death and reproductionGrace is a TV producer whose life is transfigured when she answers the door to a fully-fledged angel. Stephen was a bridge-builder in Canada before he killed himself, but now that he has come to stay with Grace he spends the night hanging by the neck in her shower, to help himself think. She falls in love, moving steadily from the spiritual to the anatomical.Meanwhile, as her TV day job on the 'Love Quiz' begins to spiral out of control, on the other side of her life is her father, benign, bewigged and stricken by a stroke - apparently mad but probably the sanest person in her life. As the three worlds meet and merge in a forest of contradictions, we watch Grace take the pacific path from cynicism to innocence, as all around her the novel thunders to a conclusion.'Reckless intelligence, savage humour, slow revelation, no consolation- Anne Enright's fiction is jet dark - but how it glitters' New York Times Book Review

One of our greatest living novelists The Times
Anne Enright is an eloquent writer - dazzlingly funny -- Penelope Fitzgerald
Enright [has a] white-knuckle grip on language. A dazzling circus of words Guardian
Reckless intelligence, savage humour, slow revelation, no consolation: Anne Enright's fiction is jet dark - but how it glitters New York Times Book Review

Anne Enright was born in Dublin, where she now lives and works. She has written two collections of stories, published together as Yesterday's Weather, one book of non-fiction, Making Babies, and seven novels, including The Gathering, which won the 2007 Man Booker Prize, The Forgotten Waltz, which was awarded the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and The Green Road, which was the Bord Gais Energy Novel of the Year and won the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award. In 2015 she was appointed as the first Laureate for Irish Fiction, and in 2018 she received the Irish PEN Award for Outstanding Contribution to Irish Literature. She is also the recipient of the 2022 Irish Book Awards Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2024 Writers' Prize for Fiction, and the 2025 Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction.

When Stephen arrives on Grace's doorstep and asks for a cup of tea, Grace's life is transfigured. Stephen is an Angel. A former bridge builder, he committed suicide one cold night in 1934, but now, nostalgically, he spends his nights hanging by the neck in Grace's shower to help himself think. Madly in love, Grace's life spirals out of control. Moving between her tacky TV show 'Love Quiz', her benign, bewigged and apparently mad father, and Stephen, Grace takes the Pacific path from cynicism to innocence with surprising results ...

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