Novelist Anne Enright Claims: ‘Disliking The McCanns Is An International Sport’
Filed under: News | By: Lucy
Posted on: October 18, 2007 | 4 Comments
Anne Enright, winner of a prestigious award for novelists has controversially revealed that she takes part in the “international Sport” of disliking parents of missing Madeleine McCann, Gerry and Kate.
Mann Booker Prize winner Enright, wrote in an essay that she was ‘angry’ at the McCanns for refusing to accept their daughter was dead.
Enright wrote,
“Disliking the McCanns is an international sport. I disliked the McCanns earlier than most people (although I am not proud) […] “I thought I was angry with them for leaving their children alone. In fact, I was angry at their failure to accept that their daughter was probably dead.”
The 45-year-old Irish novelist was the surprise winner of the literary prize for the book, The Gathering. In a 2,000 word piece entitled Disliking the McCanns, Enright says she does not share some of the public ‘animosity’ towards the ‘beautiful mother’ Kate McCann.
In the essay, Enright continues her attack, this time focussing on Gerry McCann,
“I find Gerry McCann’s need to ‘influence the investigation’ more provoking,. The sad fact is that this man cannot speak properly about what is happening to himself and his wife… the language he uses is more appropriate to a corporate executive than to a desperate father. This may just be the way he is made.
This may be all he has of himself to give the world just now. But we are all used to the idea of corporations lying to us, one way or another - it’s part of our mass paranoia.”
Gerry and Kate McCann are currently being treated by Portuguese police as formal suspects in the case of their daughter Madeleine, who went missing on May 3rd 2007.
What do you make of Anne Enright’s essay? Does she make any valid points or is it all just a vicious attack?
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This isn’t a vicious attack. It’s an honest look at “how people are”. She’s also showing a lot of insight into her own motivations, and is self-aware enough not to base any final judgement on the pair based on her own psychology.
It’s a thoughtful piece which, when some quotes are taken out of context, can be misinterpreted.
The points about Mr. McCann’s “corporate demeanor” are very true, as is her “take” on why this affects many of us so badly.
It is not what she wrote but where she wrote it.
It is written in the style of language you would use to a friend on a phone and they would be in agreement with you.
If it was written on one of the mamy McCann blogs some would agree and others would respond viciously to to it.
But put it out to the papers and you can expect that people will not admit to agreeing with her - even if the very same thoughts had been going through their heads.
She didn’t have to write this and, as such, it is in extremely poor taste considering the pain that those involved are already experiencing. As a mother herself, she should have some empathy but she doesn’t. I think that those in this situation have two choice, 1, let your emotions get the better of you in which case you will fall apart or, 2. try to keep busy and not think too much about the horror of you situation until that horror is actually proven. They have obviously chosen the second and, while they can be faulted for leaving their children alone, they cannot be faulted for not lauching the most massive child search in history. If they had gotten emotional, they would not have been able to pull it off.
She has made many valid points. I state quite plainly had have since the beginning that my sympathies do not sit with the McCann parents but with the missing child and the two they still have charge of. Let me go down to the corner pub and have a drink … where I can view my house and let my house catch on fire with my children in it and they are killed. I would be in jail before you could mouth the word negligence.
Is that to say they deserve to have their child taken from them in this manner, no. Does it say that myself and many others who think this way may not believe they are responsible for abducting their child but they are very responsible for her abduction, yes.
Anne Enright simply lays it out in simple terms what most are afraid to say openly. No one wants to seem unsympathetic to grieving parents who yes, might have suffered enough for their negligence. Even in the outpouring of sympathy for the couple, there is a silent majority who look at the whole mess and think…. Gerry McCann can get off his high horse any day now and the grieving mother can put down the stuffed doll clutched in every photograph and acknowledge their part in their own situation. There is no one that wishes the girl to be found dead but there are many of us that know statistically after this length of time, the child is dead. I would never discourage her parents from trying to find her, but can we get a bit more coverage on less attractive families with less attractive .. more recent missing children who still may have hope.