 First edition | |
| Author | Maeve Binchy |
|---|---|
| Country | Dublin, Ireland |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Drama |
| Publisher | Century |
Published in English | 1990 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| ISBN | 978-0-385-34173-8 |
Circle of Friends is a 1990 novel by the Irish author Maeve Binchy. Set in Dublin, as well as in the fictitious town of Knockglen in rural Ireland during the 1950s, the story centres on a group of university students. The novel was adapted into a 1995 feature film directed by Pat O'Connor.
In the fictional small Irish town of Knockglen in 1950, an unlikely friendship blossoms between ten-year-old Bernadette 'Benny' Hogan – an overweight, big-hearted, only child of a local merchant – and wiry orphan Eve Malone, raised from birth by nuns in a Catholic convent after her late mother's upper-class Protestant family rejected her. [1] The friendship endures into their teens, as they both attend University College Dublin. There their loyalty to each other is tested by the introduction of more students to their circle, including rugby player Jack Foley and the beautiful and ambitious social climber, Nan Mahon. [2] [3] Benny surprises everyone by winning the heart of the handsome Jack, but things turn sour when Nan attempts to use Eve's family connections to her own advantage. When her plan to snare Eve's wealthy cousin Simon Westward goes awry, Nan is forced into a new plan, one which will break Benny's heart. [2]
A key subplot involves the future of the Hogan family business, Hogan's Gentlemen's Outfitters, thrown into turmoil when Benny's father dies suddenly. Forced to abandon his plan to marry into the business, the efficient but unpleasant Sean Walsh demands a partnership, but Eddie Hogan dies before the agreement is signed. Benny reluctantly plans to honour the agreement; however, when she looks more closely at the business accounts, it reveals Sean may not be the model employee he seems.
Binchy drew from her own experience at University College Dublin for characterization and plot. Like Benny, Binchy had been overweight and clueless about boyfriends upon her arrival at UCD. She too had to return to her parents' home each night rather than stay on campus. As in her experience, campus social life revolved around the student lounge called the Annexe. There Binchy discovered that talking with boys was not as fearful as she had thought, and conveys that experience in her depiction of Benny and Jack becoming friends. [4]
Among the themes the novel explores are happiness, friendship and love, commerce, and small-town Irish mores. Los Angeles Times reviewer Carolyn See describes:
Is "love" what life is about? Is marriage the cat's meow? Forget what women want—do men even want it? What if people got together for fun instead of love? What if friendship were the highest of all values? ... This is a madly subversive book. It purports to answer such harmless questions as: "What shall I wear?" but is, in fact, an almost perfect handbook on: "How shall I live?" [3]
Binchy similarly counterpoints the commercial aspirations of long-time merchants in the town against the newfangled ideas of two young entrepreneurs. [3] And she pokes fun at Irish small-town life with many vignettes of townspeople "playing telephone", recording their disparate reactions to what is going on around them. [1]
Circle of Friends was one of Binchy's most popular novels, [5] and one for which she was best known in the United States. [6] Reviewers commended it for its storytelling quality and description of ordinary events with "extraordinary straightforwardness and insight". [7] Publishers Weekly cited the book's "seductive readability". [2] Susan Isaacs in her review for The New York Times concluded: "There is nothing fancy about 'Circle of Friends.' There is no torrid sex, no profound philosophy. There are no stunning metaphors. There is just a wonderfully absorbing story about people worth caring about." [7]
Binchy's cousin, the actress Kate Binchy, narrated an audiobook of the novel in 1991. [8]
A 1995 feature film adaptation was written by Andrew Davies and directed by Pat O'Connor. [9] Binchy attended the Irish premiere at the Savoy Cinema. [10]
Anne Maeve Binchy Snell was an Irish novelist, playwright, short story writer, columnist, and speaker. Her novels were characterised by a sympathetic and often humorous portrayal of small-town life in Ireland, and surprise endings. Her novels, which were translated into 37 languages, sold more than 40 million copies worldwide. Her death at age 73, announced by Vincent Browne on Irish television late on 30 July 2012, was mourned as the death of one of Ireland's best-loved and most recognisable writers.
Events from the year 1990 in Ireland.
The Glass Lake is a 1994 novel by the Irish author Maeve Binchy. The action takes place in a rural Irish village as well as in London in the 1950s. It is notable as the last of Binchy's novels to be set in the 1950s. Binchy explores the roles of women in Irish society and inconstant lovers, and uses an operatic plot to hold the reader's attention.
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Circle of Friends is a 1995 film directed by Irish filmmaker Pat O'Connor, and based on the 1990 novel of the same name written by Maeve Binchy.
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Róisín Ingle is an Irish writer – a journalist, columnist and editor – as well as a podcast presenter and producer. She grew up in Sandymount, Dublin and, except for a brief stint in the UK, has lived and worked in Ireland for most of her life. She started working at the Sunday Tribune and then moved to the Irish Times in the late 1990s, where she has worked since, notably producing a widely read lifestyle column, working as a features editor and producing multiple series of podcasts. Selections of her columns, which number more than 4,000, have been collected in two books. Ingle has also co-produced and contributed to another publication, and edited others, notably a collection of work by Maeve Binchy.
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