One of the bummers about having children, Anne Enright declares in “Making Babies,” her excellent memoir, is that it “can interfere with your drinking for up to 15 years; first because you don’t want to drop them, and subsequently because you don’t want to make them cry.”

Irish author and Booker prize winner Anne Enright talks to John Mullan at the Guardian Review book club about her tale of adultery in the time of boom and crash, The Forgotten Waltz

Enright trains her anti-romantic, anti-dramatic eye on the ordinariness of what has transpired. How often marriages fail. How often love appears unbidden.

Yes, it’s an absolute full-time job — the Booker was another full time job. And I had two full-time jobs already. I had a home to run and I had books to write. It was a third full-time job, for sure. And then there’s being the travel agent. After the Booker, I was on Expedia saying, ”I think I can do this — this journey can be done in under 20 hours.

Anne Enright tells a funny, dark, no-judgments tale of rapture and ambivalence.

The author, who has a quick wit and a hearty laugh, as well as a refreshingly no-nonsense attitude, spoke to me recently from the West Coast, where she was on book tour.

People will say of the Irish, "Now that's someone I'd like to share a pint with." But I have to admit, drinking beer with Irish author Anne Enright crossed my mind more than once during Amazon's recent pint-free chat with her. Anne was funny and charming and real. Someone you'd want to spend time with. Over a pint. Or two.

What rescues all this from banality is not so much the plangency of Gina's situation as the pungency of her tart observations, about both the unpredictability of attraction and "The Culture of Money" on which Sean speaks at a Swiss conference they both attend.

Booker Prize winner Anne Enright returns this month with The Forgotten Waltz, a wry novel of passion and infidelity. She came all the way from Ireland to Bookish HQ and gave us insights about working in television, writing fiction, and which one put her flat on her back.

In her new book, The Forgotten Waltz (October 3, 2011, W.W. Norton), Enright has left "Old Ireland" behind: this Dublin romance takes flight during the "Irish Tiger" 1990s, when the country's economic boom was fueling changes in social mores. However, more than that, Enright said, her protagonist Gina, who leaves a stable marriage after a whirlwind affair, "believes she just couldn't help it. She didn't do it on purpose!"

A swirling reappraisal of adulterous love set against the decline of Ireland’s property boom.

A swirling reappraisal of adulterous love set against the decline of Ireland's property boom.

Video: At The Book Show in Dublin Mariella spoke to Booker Prize winner Anne Enright. And we managed to get a video interview with her backstage.

At 7,500 words strong and encompassing 66 titles, this is the only second-half of 2011 book preview you will ever need.

This video features Anne Enright, a critically acclaimed, internationally-bestselling Irish author. She has published essays, short stories, a nonfiction book, and four novels, including The Gathering, which won the Man Booker Prize in 2007 and was named the 2008 Irish Novel of the Year. Enright’s new book is The Forgotten Waltz.

The Forgotten Waltz, as its romantic title suggests, has more of a soft centre than she usually allows herself.

Anne Enright presents The Forgotten Waltz at BEA 2011. Introduction by Jim Lehrer.

Eh – if you really like domestic intrigue you might find it worth the effort. It’s not her finest – I’d be very surprised if the Booker judges pounced on this one – but to give her credit, Enright’s still good at breaking down awkward family dynamics and how memory can be used to manipulate a narrative and its readers. And in places, it’s very funny; Gina’s sharp asides, bitching about her sister and her friends and the economic disaster, are biting. But still, the story’s pretty weak, the characters aren’t the most memorable, and the language isn’t especially innovative or startling. I’d pass on this and reread her earlier short stories – or The Gathering – instead.