BINCHY’S LAST BOOK A DELIGHTFUL GIFT
LATE IRISH AUTHOR, RUTH RENDELL OFFER COMPELLING TALES
FOR FANS OF perennial favourite Maeve Binchy and those who like mysteries by Ruth Rendell, no matter what she calls herself, here are two new offerings to either give as gifts or keep for yourself. Both are very good.
I was both elated and broken-hearted to be given A Week
in Winter (Orion, 464 pages, $28.99) to review. I have adored Maeve Binchy’s books for three decades and shared her many novels with my late mother. Regretfully, Binchy died in July. This is her last book.
The story is straightforward: A widow has returned from two decades in the U.S. to her home in Stoneybridge, Ireland, and buys a broken-down manor to turn into a lovely bed and breakfast. Geraldine Ryan, whom everyone calls Chicky for her childhood chore of taking care of the hens, ran away as a young woman to the States with a boy. The story goes that her husband died in a car crash. But that is not the case.
Chicky is the central character, but like most Binchy plots, the backstory of the other characters will be told one by one until they all intersect. In this case, the device to pull everything together is the opening week of the new hotel, Stone House, with the following guests: Winnie, a nurse with a lovely new boyfriend; Lillian, the jealous mother who has no intention of letting Winnie steal her son; Henry and Nicola, a husband-and-wife team of doctors carrying a load of sadness; the Swedish accountant Anders who wants to be a musician; famous movie star John hiding out under an assumed name; Ann and Charlie Walls, the funniest pair of the bunch, a couple of retired teachers who are mad about entering contests; Nell Howe, a very scary retired headmistress who seemingly has no heart; and lastly, Freda, a librarian with a secret and with an aunt Eva who comes very close to being the one character most like the earthy Binchy herself. “She had only two rules of style — easy-care and brightly coloured — and was perfectly dressed for every occasion.”
Binchy uses gentle storytelling and subtle humour to weave back and forth between the characters, and leaves little insider nuggets here and there for fans of her previous books: mentions of the restaurant Quentins, Whitethorn Woods and the Signora from Evening Class. There are hints of the way the story might turn out had there been a sequel, but as it stands we must just imagine the next chapter in the lives of the cast. Sadness aside, this is a delightful gift from one of Ireland’s most beloved writers.
Ruth Rendell is an excellent mystery writer so why she takes the pen name of Barbara Vine is beyond me. Perhaps it’s like wearing a mask; she feels like a different person when she writes under a different name. It works here in The Child’s Child (Doubleday Canada, 302
pages, $22.95), a book within a book that follows the parallel lives of a brother and sister, one in 2011 and the other in the 1930s. Illegitimacy and homosexuality and the very different ways they played out in the past and today are the underlying themes.
In the present, Grace and Andrew Easton inherit a large home in London when their grandmother dies. Instead of selling the house and splitting the proceeds, they decide to live there. Everything is hunky dory until Andrew brings home his lover, the very attractive but opinionated James. He and Grace clash immediately.
Then one night in Soho, James and Andrew are at a nightclub where a friend is stabbed by gay-baiting thugs. Things go downhill. At the same time, Grace does a friend a favour and reads a manuscript of a book that could never be published when it was written in the 1950s because of the storyline of an unwed mother and a homosexual man that would have shocked the morals of the general public at that time.
The book is about Maud, pregnant at 15 and cast out by her family, who moves away to live with her gay brother, John. Maud and John pretend to be husband and wife, but soon John’s secret life and dodgy boyfriend take the tale to an ugly and fatal place. The manuscript is a bit of a mirror image of what Grace and Andrew are living through in the 21st century.
The old stuff was more exciting to read than the present day, and Rendell/ Vine can definitely spin a tale. She has a lovely descriptive touch and there were lots of “Oh, I didn’t see that coming” moments of discovery. Pretty good stuff, this.