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Summary
Author Notes
Maeve Binchy was born in Dublin, Ireland on May 28, 1940. She received a B.A. from University College in Dublin in 1960. After teaching at a school for girls, she became a journalist, columnist and editor at the Irish Times. By 1979, she was writing plays, a successful television script, and several short story collections.
Her first novel, Light a Penny Candle, was published in 1982. During her lifetime, she wrote more than 20 books including Silver Wedding, Scarlet Feather, Heart and Soul, Minding Frankie, and A Week in Winter. The Lilac Bus and Echoes were made into TV movies, while Circle of Friends, Tara Road and How About You were made into feature films. Her title Chestnut Street is a New York Times Best Seller. She died after a brief illness on July 30, 2012 at the age of 72.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Binchy ( Circle of Friends ; The Lilac Bus ) is a consummate storyteller with a unique ability to draw readers into her tales of Irish life. Here again she mines sources rich in plot and character to produce a captivating narrative. The eponymous copper beech is a huge tree that shades the tiny schoolhouse in the village of Shancarrig. For generations, graduating pupils have carved their initials on the massive trunk, and the book examines what has become of some of them. Though each of the 10 chapters offers the perspective of a single character, Binchy adroitly indicates the ways in which their lives intersect. Thus, the allegedly stolen jewels that are discovered and stolen again in one early chapter become significant in later chapters. Long after two adulterous characters sneak into a Dublin hotel, it emerges that they were spotted by a small soul from Shancarrig, who passes on the information--with unforeseen consequences. A priest's dalliance with the sweet young schoolteacher is shown to have been been suspected by others in the village. The result is a charming and compelling series of interlocking stories about ordinary people who are given dimension through Binchy's empathetic insight. While this book is more fragmentary in structure than some of her previous novels, it should leave Binchy's fans wholly satisfied. BOMC main selection. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Another collection of related tales (as in this popular Irish author's The Lilac Bus, 1991) dealing with a varied clutch of people and their several life crises. The principals here are mainly natives of the village of Shancarrig, and some are former classmates at the school, a little stone building shaded by a copper beech. The time is roughly from the 1950's to 1969, when the school closes. The chronicles begin with the sad story of fragile (and only faintly fey) Maddy Ross, a junior assistant teacher, and her doomed love for a charismatic priest (who cheats the church as he cheats her). Among the other people whose stories are told: Maura Brennan, poor and good beyond imagining, who adores her Down's syndrome son, the legacy of a deserting husband; lonely Eddie Barton, who's carrying on a lie-padded pen-pal romance with a Scottish lass who has her own secret; the long-grieving Dr. Jims, who at last has a reconciliation with his son--the son whose birth took his wife's life; the childless Kellys who experience a miracle-through-death; lawyer Richard Hayes, who learns love the hard way; and a pair of lovers who triumph over knowledge of murder and scandal. At the end, the school building is to close, and who will be the new owners? Outsiders? Maddy Ross's unsavory cult? One of the school alums who carved initials in the beech? A parfait of sentiment and mostly happy endings. There are a few bright and snappy spots--but, in general, it's all heartwarming to the swelter point. (Book-of-the-Month Dual Selection for November)
Booklist Review
So familiar is the style of this tale, it could be called another trip on The Lilac Bus [BKL S 1 91], Binchy's last collection of interrelated stories set in Ireland, except that the townsfolk stay home this time. Focusing primarily on a 1960s graduating class from the village school of Shencarrig, Binchy's tales open with a school fete and move on to cover the joys, worries, and adventures of Maura, Leo, Nessa, Niall, Eddie, and others as they graduate, consider leaving their home town, or look about for employment or other constructive activity. Other figures--the town priests, teachers, and doctors--are also given a chapter in order to develop the histories of the place and the schoolchildren. Romances bloom, some are crushed, and an aura of mystery hovers faintly until resolved in a final chapter. Binchy's characters are fresh and their fates intriguing in this episodic tale. ~--Denise Perry Donavin