The Wig My Father Wore

by Anne Enright

The second novel to be published in America by widely acclaimed Irish author Anne Enright, The Wig My Father Wore is a spry, hilarious novel about parents, love, religion, and the absurdities of them all. Grace is a young Dubliner who works on a television show called Love Quiz. Her father is going benignly senile, but her life otherwise seems fairly solid. When Stephen arrives on her doorstep, however, Grace has no idea what she's in for. Stephen explains that he is an angel, a former bridge builder who committed suicide in 1934. He has been sent back to earth (as all suicides are) to guide lost souls. Grace does not take this personally at first, but eventually she has to face the idea that things are not so easy, and that her greatest intimacy is with this supernatural creature. As Grace begins to take stock of her life and the prospect of caring enough about something to fight for it, The Wig My Father Wore takes us on a moving, surreal romp through Catholicism, parents, and the reclamation of love from the twin modern evils of cynicism and the detritus of pop culture.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Irish Literature, Contemporary, Ireland, 20th Century, Novels

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Anne Enright was born in Dublin, where she now lives and works. She has published three volumes of stories, one book of nonfiction, and five novels. In 2015, she was named the inaugural Laureate for Irish Fiction. Her novel The Gathering won the Man Booker Prize, and The Forgotten Waltz won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction.

Reviews

[Gail · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was quite a bizarre little book. An angel, called Stephen (formerly a Canadian bridge-builder who killed himself) arrives at Grace's house one day and asks for a cup of tea. He stays with her, and she finds herself falling in love with him. The story switches back and forth from her interaction with Stephen, to her job producing a tacky TV show 'Love Quiz', to her relationship with her parents, and particularly her father, who has had a stroke which has affected his language, so he uses the wrong words for things, and also takes language very literally. (The realist in me is protesting that it should be either one or the other - if it's a left-brain stroke it would affect his use of words, whereas if it's a right-brain stroke it would make him more literal - but hey, this is a world where angels turn up and ask for cups of tea, so I suppose one can't really expect realism!)

It was a very surreal read. I found myself a little confused as to what was going on sometimes, but just carried on reading, letting myself be carried away in this surreal world without understanding it all. As such, it was actually a pretty enjoyable read. I have no idea how much is to be taken literally, and how much is what was going on in Grace's head - for instance, her body changes throughout the novel, becoming softer and whiter, more like a child's body, just as Stephen changes her house to make the rooms all white, as if she is returning to a state of innocence. And her mind seems to become childlike as well. I imagine the ambiguity is deliberate. Still, it's a novel I'd like to read again sometime, to see if it makes any more sense on a second reading!

[Courtney Johnston · Rating 4 out of 5]

A 30-ish year-old woman wrestles with her mother, her father, her father's wig, her job, and an angel. Didn't really know what was going on most of the time, but Anne Enright's ability to use simple words in a surprising way, making sentences that sound brand new, is the kind of thing that makes me wish I could write.

[Penni Russon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another odd, challenging but pleasing reading experience from Anne Enright. She employs some curious literary devices, which I enjoyed (and I wish she'd made more use of them in the second half of the book). Her story slips between luminous and opaque, and at times I struggled with engagement, but I was always drawn back in. I read it over a number of weeks, reading other things in between which may have made it a more chaotic reading experience.

[Gertrud Soone · Rating 4 out of 5]

“your father is dying, but so are we all.”

beautiful, funny, engaging!

[Ross · Rating 3 out of 5]

really funny but i think a bit *too* surreal for my liking

[Debra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book after I read The Gathering by the same author. This book is in the magical realism realm (an angel is one of the characters) but it's also earthy and gutsy as well. An interesting read.

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once the necessary adjustment has been made, the mind fine-tuned, this book is intoxicating. I suspect that something of its eccentric madness is because it was written with the freedom of the unpublished writer, having no expectations and brave with immortality.

[Rebecca]

?

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somewhat incomprehensible at times but absolutely, intimately realistic even with the angel sex and feathers and all.

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wild stream of conciousness novel. Still unsure where her influences came from. I'm an admirer of Enright, based on her most recent works. Very interested in reading an early work, like this one.

[Keith Currie · Rating 2 out of 5]

An Irish woman has problems with a lot of dead people.

[Maeve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Has Grace had a breakdown? Why? Who or what is Stephen? Just some of the many questions this book invites readers to ask without ever answering....

Yet despite a lack of answers this book is more enticing than frustrating as the reader gets to know Grace/Grainne who works on a TV show in 1990s Dublin and struggles to come to terms with her own identity, what modern day Ireland means and her relationship to her family, guided by the angelic presence of her friend/housemate/lover/guardian angel, as she strips back layers of meaning and attempts to connect with something real

[Jay · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this in a day - yesterday - it was totally absorbing and engaging...a lot of reviewers have mentioned the strange, magic realist, stream-of-consciousness style - but I liked it, it was a mash-up, but different.

This is a book about being human - it's about grieving: that strange sort of grieving you do when someone you love is still alive, but no longer who they once were [MC Grace's father has dementia following a stroke.] It's about loneliness, and not having a real purpose in life - it's about love [family love, friends, romantic etc].

Grace is a producer on the LoveQuiz, an Irish version of that old Cilla Black dating show, Blind Date - Enright nails its banality and futility beautifully.She hates her job but doesn't know what else to do with her life.

Into Grace's hot mess of a life comes an angel, Stephen, who in a rather It's A Wonderful Life way, is there to put her back on a path to having a better life; trouble is, she falls in love with him, though getting him to 'put out' [as she expresses it] turns out to be difficult, with him being ineffable and all that. It's hugely funny and very sad, at the same time.

Her writing is a joy, it's so new, so fresh and there are some lovely turns of phrase and the humour is wicked. There's a very good scene in a toilet cubicle involving a man, a snake and a white mouse...

The ending is ambiguous and unclear [and I do love a proper ending] but maybe that's what she's saying; life doesn't tie itself up in a neat bow. I loved it and I'm going to read it again, right now.

[Anastacia Cody · Rating 3 out of 5]

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐢𝐠 𝐌𝐲 𝐅𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐞 is the story of a woman that is displaying symptoms of trauma because her father started wearing a wig one day when she was a child; a wig which he continued to wear the rest of his life without ever addressing it's strange presence.

The scenes where Grace describes the wig in great detail are hilarious, wacky and somewhat sinister. She describes the wig the way one might describe a villian and it is very much a character in the story. I wonder was it symbolic of a fear of death, decay and ultimate fragility of human existence.

The story has a lot of charming hiberno-english words and phrases, and many beautifully written paragraphs. This saved it where it would otherwise has sank due to the weakness of the plot as the Guardian Angel storyline was painfully confusing.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

#anneenright #wig #trauma #irish #quirky
#thewigmyfatherwore #irishinterest
#review #bookstagram #readersofinstagram #booklover #wacky #hibernoenglish

[Stephen Ring · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not your typical read, laced with elements of magic realism and a cursory nod to the concept of "It's A Wonderful Life" Biting satire of the television indusry, particularly the idea of reality dating shows But beyond that, a rather surreal journey of a cynical women who, somehow in the end, finds strength to resign from her meaningless job and stressful parents to seek out life anew.

[Erin]

Baffling and beguiling. Sometimes the prose was a delight (and sometimes nigh impenetrable). This was written by someone who does not think or speak the same language as I do, though they are both called English. I didn't care at all for the television subplot, but the father's wig was a great character, and the love story with Stephen was one of the most charming romances I've read.

[Indiana · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of my first dives into irish literature, and certainly not a disappointment. The writing style piqued my interest. I found myself very fascinated despite the fact that the plot is not truly the novel's real purpose. I was drawn to Stephen as a character, as both a representation of religion and as a respresentation of human life. I truly enjoyed this read.

[Mary Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

I tried another Anne Enright book, her first one, because I do love the way she uses language, and I like the way she depicts family relationships, very honestly. I was able to read half of the book until the plot about her boyfriend being an ANGEL got to be too much for me.

[gorecki · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have no idea what I just read, but I liked it. A string of consciousness mixed with a string of unconsciousness, a series of beautiful lines followed by vulgarity, several storylines at once, yet no actual story really... Enright is a force of nature. That's it. Understand that as you please.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is so much great material in this book, so many lines that I thought about copying out. The novel seems to float away in some extra, extra magical realism toward the end, but I still can't help but love it. Anne Enright's language is so gorgeous.

[Petra De Graaf · Rating 2 out of 5]

I actually don’t understand what the book is about, I did not get it. In the end the title was the most fun

Gelezen in de boekenwurm challenge juni: boeken met 5 woorden in de titel (gecombineerd met #LUEK)

[Marsha Valance · Rating 4 out of 5]

An absurdist fantasy about an assistant television producer in Dublin afflicted by a suicide-turned-angel.

[Nadi Palshikar · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have read and loved Anne Enright's entire body of work.
This, her first novel, is the last book I read.

Quirky, good. A clever love story.

But somehow, I love her later work more.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Иногда я выбираю книги по названию, просто ни с чего. "Парик моего отца" - и бум! - я знаю, что мне суждено прочесть книгу с этим названием, так что я приступаю сразу, чтобы не гадать долго, что там за парик.
Название отдаёт каким-то сумасшествием, и оно не обманывает. Всегда очень радует, когда название точно передаёт суть книги. Собственно, посмотрите на фотографию автора в профиле на лайвлибе или в википедии. А теперь представьте, что Грейс (Грайн), героиня книги, это она. Тут же всё становится ясно, что скучной прозы ждать не приходится.
В книге имеется: парик - правда, и связанная с ним детская психологическая травма; также неразвившийся близнец, имеющий прямое (то есть совершенно косвенное и существующее только в голове Грейс (Грайн)) отношение к парику; ангел, он же бывший (успешный) суицидник, поселившийся у Грейс, и наводящий белизну (чистоту, невинность) на всё, до чего дотягивается; работа на телевидении - абсолютное безумие, и конечно же автор сама работала на телевидении и знает об этом всё; И - Ирландия (поэтому Грайн). "Рулетка любви" - таково название передачи, которую делает Грейс. Но, кажется, автор просто хочет нам сказать, что (СПОЙЛЕР) нельзя стать родителем, пока не развязался с собственным детством, любовь - это так.
Критики сравнивают Энрайт с Флэнном О'Брайеном. Не читайте этой книги, если вы не знакомы с этим автором или если вы никогда не употребляли наркотиков - мне так кажется из моего опыта. Мне не то чтобы понравилось, но нормально прошло.

[Abe · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the title explicitly implies, this story is very witty and bizarre indeed. Elegant prose and astute social observations.

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disappointed with this novel, especially after having read The Gathering by Enright.

One lovely passage about grieving while and through dreaming...dreaming while and through grieving... waking up to realize you have been grieving a loss you hadn't realized still profoundly affected you.

Another moving passage, when the father with dementia, takes off his wig and stands on his head, and says to his wife, "like we were before..." or something like that. Before...when they were younger, playful, filled with joy, before he had a wig, before he covered up his vulnerable baldness, before he had dementia.

[sisterimapoet · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quite an odd one, and a clear sign that Enrights writing has improved over time.

There were some great parts within it, particularly the descriptions around her family, but the splicing with strange work scenes dragged the whole down for me.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

The end...is that it? I liked the style and the ideas it brings up. But it just kinda drifts along and then floats away on an updraft. The beginning promised more. I enjoyed it enough to want to check out her other books.

[Jay DeVine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yeah, I didn't finish this book. I read about half and then decided it just wasn't all that interesting. The novel strives for quirky and surreal, but it's just a hot mess. Very hard to understand and I just wasn't involved enough to keep working at it.

[Paul Long · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strange book about a woman who works for a BBC quiz show and has an angel move in with her. Written in a surreal style that take a while to get used to. At first, I didn't think I was going to finish it, but I plowed through, and began to understand it? Maybe. Still confused over what happened.