My Weekend with Maeve

Recently, I spent a long weekend in the west of Ireland and didn't have to cross the Atlantic via plane or ship. Irish writer Maeve Binchy transported me to a seaside village via A WEEK IN WINTER, the book she finished shortly before her death last July.

The premise of A WEEK IN WINTER is the time-honored one of strangers gathering for a specific purpose. Remember Chaucer's CANTERBURY TALES? In both works, most of these strangers are, at least initially, identified by their occupations. Chaucer introduced us to the Prioress, the Friar, and the Knight. Binchy gives us the Principal, the Doctors, and the Librarian.

The pilgrimages in A WEEK IN WINTER are mental or spiritual. The strangers hope to restore themselves with long walks along the cliffs, sea air, and good food. To that end, they gather at Stone House, a mansion-turned-inn operated by Chicky Starr, an Irishwoman who spent twenty years in New York City and harbors a secret.

Within a frame narrative, Binchy tells each person's story. In addition to the Principal, the Doctors, and the Librarian, Stone House attracts an American actor traveling incognito, a youngish woman and her difficult mother-in-law to-be, a Swedish musician grappling with his duty to take over the family's accounting business, and a couple who supplement their income by entering contests.

We also learn about Stone House's employees Rigger and Orla and the mansion's original owner, Miss Queenie Sheedy, who is thrilled to see her family home restored to glory.

Chicky Starr's story is compelling, as is her desire to create a refuge where others can relax and recharge.  

Readers can dip into the book one character's story at a time or devour the whole thing at once. I enjoyed the mention of characters from previous Binchy books, particularly Ania, the young Polish cleaning lady/factotum from HEART AND SOUL who is now, I learned, training to be a nurse. (Yes, Ania is fictional, but I am happy for her all the same.)

I enjoyed my stay at Stone House and am grateful for the hours I've spent in Ireland, England, Greece, and other locales with Binchy as my tour guide. I'll miss her.

The following dessert is a recipe from Ina Garten, better known as the Barefoot Contessa. My first attempt wouldn't have passed muster with Chicky Starr, but I'll improve. This treat is ideal for summer and is much easier to prepare than I thought it would be. That said, I did NOT, ahem, make my own mango sorbet. I bought Trader Joe's version. (And TJ's raspberry sorbet, too.) The Barefoot Contessa says the recipe serves eight, but it easily serves twelve.

Above is a shot of the ice cream bombe I made, with the photo of Ina Garten's (from her BAREFOOT IN PARIS cookbook) in the background. As you can see, I poured the berry sauce with too heavy a hand. (Mine, by the way, was made with blackberries.)

Who wouldn't enjoy a weekend in Ireland plus sorbet and ice cream for dessert?

Are you a Binchy fan? If so, do you have a favorite book or character? When it comes to dessert, do you have a favorite? What is it?

Reading through Good Times and Bad

This post is about the authors whose books accompanied me through turning points, pulled me out of down times, and waltzed with me when things went well.

A post that promises to be long and winding deserves a soundtrack, don't you think? I give you the people of Open Books, a non-profit that promotes literacy and runs a bookstore in Chicago. They want to encourage those of us who've grown overfond of our e-readers to get out, browse the shelves, and pick up a print book. 

(Feel free to bust a move as you read on.) Earlier this month, Patricia Rickrode, who writes as Jansen Schmidt, gave me the Booker Award (not to be confused with the Man Booker Prize, ha!). Patricia also threw down a challenge: name my five favorite books and nominate three other bloggers for the award.

No way could I narrow down my favorite books to five, so I'm doing what Patricia did: naming influential authors. Each of my five taught me something/gave me something I needed at a particular point in my life. Just as a certain scarf, scent, or piece of jewelry evokes a particular time and place for me, so do these writers.

Mary Stewart – I must have been fourteen or fifteen when I discovered Mary Stewart and THE MOON SPINNERS. The windmill on the cover and exotic setting of Crete hooked me. Most of all, I remember a scene in which the hero and heroine drag themselves from the water. The heroine was wearing a bathing suit, but when she and the hero embraced, she thinks, "We might as well have been naked." That sentence switched on my sexuality. One minute I was a kid, and the next, I wasn't. While I loved THIS ROUGH MAGIC and AIRS ABOVE THE GROUND, and MY BROTHER MICHAEL, THE MOON SPINNERS was my first Stewart and is unforgettable because it opened me to possibility. An ordinary (although lovely and plucky) woman could stumble into and get herself out of danger--while falling in love. Stewart's settings also gave me a permanent hunger for travel.

Maeve Binchy – I'd been an English major in college, which meant I read so much literary fiction, I forgot why I liked to read. My mother passed along Maeve Binchy's first book, LIGHT A PENNY CANDLE, published thirty-two years ago. Binchy pulled me out of my mired-in-first-job funk and reminded me why I enjoy slipping into the lives of others and experiencing their problems, adventures, and triumphs. Binchy's books would accompany me through motherhood, two careers, and inspire me to write fiction.

Nora Roberts – I was a mom, working at a job that valued repartee, cynicism, and zeal for working long hours. Alas, I'm lousy at repartee, passed skepticism but failed at cynicism, and was wracked with guilt over the hours spent away from my family. Enter Nora Roberts. The first novel I read might have been SACRED SINS in 1987. Her stories offered escape, a fast pace, and lean prose—all appreciated by a working mom with little free time.

Susan Elizabeth Phillips – HEAVEN, TEXAS wasn't Susan Elizabeth Phillips' first book but was the first of hers I read. It was released in paperback in April, 1995, the month and year my then-employer, The Houston Post, printed its last newspaper. If one finds herself in unemployment hell, a feel-good story is as necessary as food and water. SEP came through for me again eleven years ago this week. After the Twin Towers fell, I turned to THIS HEART OF MINE. The story's heroine is a children's book author, and I clung to Daphne the Bunny and Benny the Badger as much as I leaned on the church-camp-turned-B&B setting with its pastel cottages and water views. This book was an emotional refuge for me, and I'm not exaggerating when I say I'd finish it one evening and re-start it the next.

My choice for writer number five is many writers. During Houston's hot, humid summers, I count on British and Irish writers for relief. Why? Cool, rainy settings refresh me when my front lawn is so dry it crackles. When the temps are in the nineties, I want books from Marian Keyes, Lucy Dillon, Maggie O'Farrell, Jojo Moyes, Marcia Willett, and the list goes on and on.

I haven't singled out favorite Houston-based writers, favorite writers I know personally, or favorite writers I've taken classes from because it's so hard to pick and choose from those groups, I didn't try.

The Booker Award  goes to the following bloggers: Lark Haward of THIS blog, Kay Hudson, and Karen McFarland. It never expires, so there's no pressure to post about it anytime soon.

Readers, your turn. What writer or book provided inpiration, comfort, or a kick in the pants at a particular point in your life?

Thanks, Maeve

Irish writer Maeve Binchy died last Monday at the age of 72.

She'll live on through her books and the memorable characters she created like Benny Hogan (Circle of Friends), the awkward small-town girl who makes a place for herself at university and in the city; Signora Nora O'Donoghue (Evening Class), who left her heart in Italy but builds a new life for herself in her native Ireland; and Ania (Heart and Soul), the Polish immigrant whose broken heart is healed in a most unlikely place: a Dublin heart clinic. Binchy's heroes and heroines are everyday people who tap into reserves of strength and character they didn't know they possessed.

“Nobody is ordinary if you know where to look,” she told the Irish Voice newspaper in 2007.

Her rogues are everyday people, too, and their sins tend to be selfishness and self-absorption. Those failings might not appear dramatic, but they're more than enough to crush spirits and destroy families.

Binchy's novels and short stories showed the effects of the diaspora, urbanization, the boom and bust cycle, and the changes wrought by immigration into Ireland. She was neither twee nor nostalgic.

From Binchy, I learned we cab survive our disappointments, mistakes, and even our upbringing. We can reinvent ourselves.

"My heroines do not become beautiful elegant swans, they become confident ducks and get on with life."

  

Read S. J. Driscoll's tribute to Binchy. Then, click on the video below to hear Binchy talk about writing.

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Finally, re-read your favorite Binchy novel ,or, if you're not familiar with Binchy's work, order one of her collections of short stories such as Whitethorn Woods. If we read and re-read Binchy, we won't really have lost her.