Easy to read and a compelling story based in a coastal town in Ireland where everyone knows everyone’s business. Reminded me a bit of my time in the South in the US. Flipping between perspectives naturally, Binchy shares a very personal side to the story through the spiderweb of characters in a small town. Forces at work beyond the characters’ control left me questioning what I would have done if it were me. How did they manage to persevere? ( )

I like reading Maeve Binchy as the characters are so real, the intertwined plots resonate with me as I either have lived it or know of someone who has. Although you get a general idea of what is going to happen and how the characters are going to act or react, as a reader I keep reading as every chapter is an emotive read. Binchy tells the story of lives that are intertwined through the years, the challenges, of love, class, hardships, infidelities, betrayal and tragedy, where the echoes of the past can be hard to shake off. This is an Irish novel, set in the bygone era 1950’s -60’s, a time and place, that seem so long ago but aspects of which makes me realise that although the world has moved on, it retains echoes of a of that time in terms of prejudices, judgements.
This is the story of working class Claire O'Brien, a shopkeeper's daughter, bright and ambitious, determined to escape her circumstances, helped by her teacher, Angela O'Hara, Claire gains a scholarship that takes her to Dublin to study. Then there is David Power, the local doctor's son, who meet up in Dublin where nobody knows them from their hometown so do not judge them as begin classes apart (rich – poor). They fall in love, marry and start a family but struggle to bridge the class divide, which leads David to have an extra marital affair with Caroline Nolan, a solicitor who is from a rich privileged background. Gerry Doyle, a local photographer, from a similar background as Claire, and who obsessed by her since their schooldays, aims to right this wrong by sending photos to Claire, and Caroline of both David and Caroline illicit affair. Gerry in the hope, of this being exposed, that Claire will leave David is heartbroken when she remains the ever-loyal wife.
Binchy makes characters we love and hate but we want to know more about these people and what will become of them. The ending was sad but I also felt angry with her, David, his mother, Agnes (Claire’s mother) and Chrissie (Claire’s sister) for not supporting her more. I do not know what I would have done in Clare's situation at the end of it all but I wished her happiness and hoped that she made something of her intellectual mind. ( )

Review to follow ( )

The story follows the lives of David and Clare for about 15 years from small town Castlebay, Ireland to Dublin and back. Clare is the daughter of a shop owner, smart but poor. David is the son of the local doctor, private schooled and well off. Others are also followed: Clare's sister Chrissie, local mover Gerry Doyle, and teacher Angela. Not a lot of real likeable characters and slow moving. Ending was meh after all that. ( )

I really enjoy Binchy's stories set in small Irish villages and the way she depicts the conservative, insular Irish culture changing through the years (in this case, the 1940s-1960s). Because this is one of her earlier books, it's a more cohesive story, not a series of connected character studies (the way, say, [Copper Beech] is) in which we see the same events through the eyes of different characters.

The main characters — 10-year-old Clare O'Brien, daughter of a shopkeeper, and 15-year-old David Power, only child of the local doctor and his rather snooty wife — are appealing and easy to root for from the start, though events that happen toward the end of this (long!) novel put them in a different light. And as usual, Binchy populates Castlebay with a winning assortment of secondary characters, from the playboy Gerry Doyle to Father Flynn to teacher Angela O'Hara, who sees something of herself in Clare that makes her the girl's fierce champion in her goals to attain a proper education.

The ending, though ... oof. I don't remember thinking much of it when I first read this as a twentysomething, but today? It's hard not to want David strung up by the twig-and-berries for the infidelity he so casually excuses with "my wife just had a baby and is no long focused exclusively on me and my sexual needs". Just, no. ( )