"The Gathering" is a novel told from the perspective of the main character Veronica. Veronica is one of the siblings from a large Hegarty family and the novel begins with her having to inform her mother that one of her sons, Liam, killed himself.
Veronica is not able to cope with her brother's death plagued with the sense of guilt for simply being alive but also for other things. She starts to reflect on her life and past, of her grandmother Ada's life and her love affair with Lamb Nugent. She remembers a time when she, Liam and her sister Kitty visited Ada and the presence of Nugent there.
In the present time Veronica has to prepare her brother's funeral and cope with the growing resentment for her husband and her unaccomplished life, aside from two smart and beautiful daughters.
Veronica slowly starts to reveal the main reason for her guilt and her thoughts of her grandmother and her lover. When they visited their grandmother Veronica witnessed Nugent sexually assaulting Liam, which she believes to be the main reason for his depression and loss of will to live. It is later also revealed that Nugent was demanding sexual services from her grandmother, probably assaulting her children, as well as grandchildren, because he was the landlord and was filled with resentment for Ada choosing his friend Charles over him.
The family gathers for Liam's wake and there they find out that Liam left behind a son, for whose attention they all fight. Veronica is haunted by the ghost of Liam's presence and depressive thoughts of her own.
Veronica decides that she can't go back to her old life, she finds herself at an airport after abandoning her family and doesn't know whether she should travel or go back home. There she also decides to finally tell their sister and rest of the family what really happened to Liam at Ada's house.
The novel follows a stream of consciousness structure, with main themes of suicide and sexual assault, but also of family, love and marriage.
