Maeve Binchy mourned as ‘a national treasure’
Irish PM weighs in on author’s life
The cultural influence of bestselling Irish author Maeve Binchy, one of Ireland’s most popular writers, who died Monday in a Dublin hospital after a brief illness, was publicly acknowledged by Ireland’s top political figures. “We have lost a national treasure,” said Prime Minister Enda Kenny.
“She was an outstanding novelist, short story writer and columnist, who engaged millions of people all around the world with her fluent and accessible style,” said Ireland’s president, Michael D. Higgins.
“In recent years she showed great courage and thankfully never lost her self-deprecating humour, honesty and remarkable integrity as an artist and human being,” Higgins said.
The 72-year-old author was best known for her depictions of human relationships and their crises, mainly in the small towns of Ireland but also in London. She sold more than 40 million books worldwide. Binchy, author of Circle of Friends and Tara Road, wrote 16 novels, four collections of short stories, a play and a novella. Her work landed her on The New York Times’ bestseller list and in Oprah’s Book Club.
In recent years she continued to write despite being slowed down by arthritis and a heart ailment.
“I do realize that I am a popular writer who people buy to take on vacation. I’m an escapist kind of writer,” Binchy said in an interview with the BookReporter website.
Describing her childhood in Dalkey in County Dublin, Binchy wrote on her official website that she was “full of enthusiasms, mad fantasies, desperate urges to be famous and anxious to be a saint.”
Her first novel, Light a Penny Candle, was published in 1982 — after being rejected by five publishers — and became a bestseller.
That book led to an invitation to appear on a French TV program, “a terrifying serious program about books,” she recalled two years ago in an interview with Donald O’Donoghue of broadcaster RTE.
“Suddenly they asked me, as only the French would, ‘Madame, what is your philosophy of life?’ What a cosmic question, but I had to answer, and answer quickly, because it was live.
“So I said, in French, ‘I think that you’ve got to play the hand that you’re dealt and stop wishing for another hand.”’
Several of her works, including Circle of Friends and Tara Road, were turned into films.
Tara Road, about two women who switch homes, was chosen by Oprah Winfrey for her popular book club.
She had announced in her column in 2000 that Scarlet Feather would be her last novel, prompting more than 800 people to write in protest to The Irish Times.
A new novel, Quentins, appeared in 2002.
In the same year, she suffered a health crisis related to a heart condition.
Her time in hospital waiting rooms, absorbing the conversations of patients, inspired another novel, Heart and Soul, in 2009.
Binchy’s novel Minding Frankie was published in 2010, the same year she received a lifetime achievement honour from the Irish Book Awards.
Her latest novel, A Week in Winter, is to be published later this year.
In a 2010 interview, Binchy said she preferred to deal with issues which could be argued from either side.
“I often wonder that if I had met Hitler, I reckon I might have found some streak of decency in him,” she told O’Donoghue.
“I once tried to write a novel about revenge. It’s the only book I didn’t finish. I couldn’t get into the mind of the person who was plotting vengeance,” she said.
The best advice, she added, comes from Coronation Street, a British soap opera: “Oh, get over yourself.”