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Maeve Binchy

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Maeve Binchy
Binchy in 2006 at a book signing in Dublin
Binchy in 2006 at a book signing in Dublin
Born(1940-05-28)28 May 1940
Dalkey, County Dublin, Ireland
Died30 July 2012(2012-07-30) (aged 72)
Dublin, Ireland
OccupationWriter
LanguageEnglish
NationalityIrish
CitizenshipIrish
Alma materUniversity College Dublin
Period1978–2012
GenreFiction, play, short story, travel writing
Literary movementPost-war Irish fiction
Notable worksDeeply Regretted By...,
Circle of Friends,
Tara Road,
Scarlet Feather
Notable awardsJacob's Award
1978
British Book Award for Lifetime Achievement
1999
People of the Year Award
2000
W H Smith Book Award for Fiction
2001
Irish PEN / AT Cross Award
2007
Irish Book Award for Lifetime Achievement
2010
SpouseGordon Snell
RelativesWilliam Binchy (brother);D. A. Binchy (uncle)
Website
http://www.maevebinchy.com

Maeve Binchy Snell (28 May 1940 – 30 July 2012), known as Maeve Binchy, was an Irish novelist, playwright, short story writer, columnist and speaker best known for her humorous take on small-town life in Ireland, her descriptive characters, her interest in human nature and her often clever surprise endings.[1][2] Her novels, which were translated into 37 languages, sold more than 40 million copies worldwide, and her death, announced by Vincent Browne on Irish television late on 30 July 2012, was mourned as the passing of Ireland's best-loved and most recognisable writer.[3][4][5][6]

Her books outsell those of other top Irish writers, such as Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, W. B. Yeats, Seamus Heaney, Edna O'Brien and Roddy Doyle.[7] She cracked the U.S., featuring on The New York Times bestseller list and in Oprah's Book Club.[8] Recognised for her "total absence of malice"[9] and generosity to other writers, she finished ahead of Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and Stephen King in a 2000 poll for World Book Day.[10][3]

Biography

Overview

Binchy was born on 28 May 1940 in Dalkey, County Dublin (modern-day Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown), Ireland, the eldest child of four. She was a sister of William Binchy, Regius Professor of Laws at Trinity College, Dublin. Her uncle was the historian D. A. Binchy (1899–1989). Educated at University College Dublin,[1][2] she worked as a teacher[1][11] then a journalist at The Irish Times[1] and later became a writer of novels and short stories.

In 1968, her mother died of cancer aged 57. Binchy's father died in 1971. She sold the family house and moved to a bedsit in Dublin.[7]

She married Gordon Snell, a children's author, in 1977. They lived together in Dalkey, not far from where she grew up, until Binchy's death.[12] The following was her view of her husband, quoted in The Irish Times after her death:

(A) writer, a man I loved and he loved me and we got married and it was great and is still great. He believed I could do anything, just as my parents had believed all those years ago, and I started to write fiction and that took off fine. And he loved Ireland, and the fax was invented so we writers could live anywhere we liked, instead of living in London near publishers.[4]

Files in the National Archives, released to the public in 2006, feature a request from Maeve Binchy to President Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh asking if he could "receive" her. She wrote, "I know you are extremely busy but I often see in the paper that you 'received' so-and-so and was wondering very simply could I be received too." This request came while she was working for The Irish Times in London in 1975.[13]

Health

Towards the end of her life, Binchy had the following message on her official website: "My health isn't so good these days and I can't travel around to meet people the way I used to. But I'm always delighted to hear from readers, even if it takes me a while to reply."[3]

She suffered with severe arthritis, which left her in constant pain.[14] As a result of the arthritis she had a hip operation.[15]

Death

Binchy died on 30 July 2012. She was 72 and succumbed after a short illness.[3][5] Gordon was by her side when she died in a Dublin hospital.[4] Just ahead of that evening's Tonight with Vincent Browne and TV3's late evening news, Vincent Browne and then Alan Cantwell, who respectively anchor these shows, announced to Irish television viewers that Binchy had died earlier that evening.[6]

Immediate media reports described Binchy as "beloved", "Ireland's most well-known novelist" and the "best-loved writer of her generation".[4][6] Fellow writers mourned their loss, including Ian Rankin,[16] Jilly Cooper,[17] Anne Rice,[18] and Jeffrey Archer.[19] Politicians also paid tribute. President Michael D. Higgins stated: "Our country mourns."[18] Taoiseach Enda Kenny said, “Today we have lost a national treasure.”[20] Minister for Special People Kathleen Lynch, appearing as a guest on Tonight with Vincent Browne, said Binchy was, for her (Lynch's) money, as worthy an Irish writer as James Joyce or Oscar Wilde, and praised her for selling so many more books than they managed.[21]

In the days after her death tributes were published from such writers as John Banville,[22] Roddy Doyle,[23] and Colm Tóibín.[24] Banville contrasted Binchy with Gore Vidal, who died the day after her, observing that Vidal "used to say that it was not enough for him to succeed, but others must fail. Maeve wanted everyone to be a success."

Shortly before her death, Binchy told The Irish Times: “I don't have any regrets about any roads I didn't take. Everything went well, and I think that's been a help because I can look back, and I do get great pleasure out of looking back ... I've been very lucky and I have a happy old age with good family and friends still around.”[4] Just before dying, she read her latest short story at the Dalkey Book Festival.[16]

She once said she would like to die "... on my 100th birthday, piloting Gordon and myself into the side of a mountain".[25]

She is scheduled to be cremated Friday in Dalkey.[26]

Work

Most of Binchy's novels are set in Ireland, dealing with the tensions between urban and rural life, the contrasts between England and Ireland, and the dramatic changes in Ireland between World War II and the present day. Her books were translated into 37 languages.[3]

She published her debut novel Light a Penny Candle in 1982.

Her first book was rejected five times. She would later describe these rejections as "a slap in the face [...] It's like if you don't go to a dance you can never be rejected but you'll never get to dance either".[3]

While some novels are complete stories (Circle of Friends, Light a Penny Candle) many of her novels revolve around a cast of interrelated characters (The Copper Beech, Silver Wedding, The Lilac Bus, Evening Class, Heart and Soul). Her later novels, Evening Class, Scarlet Feather, Quentins, and Tara Road, feature a continuum of recurring characters.

Circle of Friends, her novel published in 1990, was made into a 1995 Hollywood movie starring Chris O'Donnell and Minnie Driver with a radical change of ending.[27]

Binchy announced in 2000 that she would not tour any more of her novels, but would instead be devoting her time to other activities, and to her husband, Gordon Snell. Five further novels were published before her death — Quentins (2002), Nights of Rain and Stars (2004), Whitethorn Woods (2006), Heart and Soul (2008), and Minding Frankie (2010).[12] TV3 News reports that her final novel is to be published posthumously in the autumn.

Public appearances

In 1999, Binchy appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show.[28]

In 2009, Binchy appeared on The Meaning of Life with Gay Byrne.[29]

Binchy and her husband had a cameo appearance together in Fair City on 14 December 2011, during which the couple dined in The Hungry Pig.[30]

Awards and honours

In 1978, Binchy won a Jacob's Award for her RTÉ play, Deeply Regretted By. A second award went to the lead actor, Donall Farmer.

A 1993 photograph of her by Richard Whitehead[31] belongs to the collection of the National Portrait Gallery (London)[32] and a painting of her by Maeve McCarthy,[33] commissioned in 2005, is on display in the National Gallery of Ireland.[34]

In 1999, she received the British Book Award for Lifetime Achievement. In 2000, she received a People of the Year Award. In 2001, Scarlet Feather won the W H Smith Book Award for Fiction, defeating works by Joanna Trollope and then reigning Booker winner Margaret Atwood, amongst other contenders.[10]

In 2007, she received the Irish PEN / AT Cross Award, joining such luminaries as John B. Keane, Brian Friel, Edna O'Brien, William Trevor, John McGahern and Seamus Heaney.[35][36][37] In 2010, she received a lifetime achievement award from the Irish Book Awards.[3]

List of works

Binchy published novels, non-fiction, a play and several short story collections.

Novels[12]
Short story collections[12]
Novellas
Non-fiction
Plays
Other works

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e "Maeve Binchy". Guardian Unlimited Books.
  2. ^ a b "Maeve Binchy". Encyclopædia Britannica.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g "Author Maeve Binchy dies aged 72". BBC News. BBC. 31 July 2012. Retrieved 31 July 2012.
  4. ^ a b c d e McGarry, Patsy (31 July 2012). "Maeve Binchy, best-loved writer of her generation, dies aged 72". The Irish Times. Irish Times Trust. Retrieved 31 July 2012.
  5. ^ a b "Writer Maeve Binchy dies aged 72". RTÉ News. 30 July 2012. Retrieved 30 July 2012.
  6. ^ a b c "Beloved Irish writer Maeve Binchy has died, aged 72: Sad news this evening as the death of Ireland's most well-known novelist has passed away after a short illness". The Journal. 30 July 2012. Retrieved 30 July 2012.
  7. ^ a b "Maeve Binchy". The Daily Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group. 31 July 2012. Retrieved 31 July 2012.
  8. ^ "Maeve Binchy, bestselling Irish author, dies at 72". CBC News. 31 July 2012. Retrieved 31 July 2012.
  9. ^ Greenslade, Roy (31 July 2012). "Maeve Binchy, a journalist whose head was full of stories". The Guardian. Retrieved 31 July 2012.
  10. ^ a b "Award relief for 'anxious' Binchy". BBC News. 27 April 2001. Retrieved 27 April 2001.
  11. ^ "An interview with Jana Siciliano". BookReporter.com.
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j "Official Website of Maeve Binchy".
  13. ^ "Maeve Binchy sought meeting with President". The Irish Times. Irish Times Trust. 30 December 2006. Retrieved 30 December 2006.
  14. ^ "Author Maeve Binchy dies at 72". The Belfast Telegraph. Independent News & Media. 31 July 2012. Retrieved 31 July 2012.
  15. ^ McHardy, Anne (31 July 2012). "Maeve Binchy obituary". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 31 July 2012. Twenty years later, I was writing about arthritis and Maeve was an obvious contact. It was before her hip operation and her pain was often debilitating.
  16. ^ a b Urquhart, Conal (31 July 2012). "Maeve Binchy, bestselling Irish writer, dies aged 72". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 31 July 2012.
  17. ^ "Maeve Binchy tribute from writer Jilly Cooper". BBC. 31 July 2012. Retrieved 31 July 2012.
  18. ^ a b "Twitter pays tribute to Maeve Binchy". Irish Independent. Independent News & Media. 31 July 2012. Retrieved 31 July 2012.
  19. ^ Telford, Lyndsey; Stack, Sarah (31 July 2012). "Maeve Binchy: Warm tributes paid to beloved Dalkey author on her death after illness". Irish Independent. Independent News & Media. Retrieved 31 July 2012.
  20. ^ McGarry, Patsy (31 July 2012). "Tributes paid to 'national treasure' Maeve Binchy". The Irish Times. Irish Times Trust. Retrieved 31 July 2012.
  21. ^ "30 July 2012 episode". Tonight with Vincent Browne. TV3.
  22. ^ Banville, John (1 August 2012). "Her prose had an exuberance, an effervescence, that was visible in her very typing". The Irish Times. Irish Times Trust. Retrieved 1 August 2012.
  23. ^ Doyle, Roddy (1 August 2012). "'Whenever she had her hands on a new Maeve Binchy buke . . .'". The Irish Times. Irish Times Trust. Retrieved 1 August 2012.
  24. ^ Tóibín, Colm (1 August 2012). "She brought self-deprecation to a fine art, but there was always irony behind it". The Irish Times. Irish Times Trust. Retrieved 1 August 2012.
  25. ^ Greenstreet, Rosanna (22 July 1995). "The Questionnaire: Maeve Binchy". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 31 July 2012.
  26. ^ Barr, Robert. "Popular Irish author Maeve Binchy dies at 72". AP. Google.
  27. ^ "Circle of Friends". IMDB.com.
  28. ^ Mackay, Don (31 July 2012). "'A larger-than-life recorder of human foibles and wonderment': Author Maeve Binchy dies, aged 72". The Mirror. Retrieved 31 July 2012.
  29. ^ "The Meaning Of Life with Gay Byrne". RTÉ. Retrieved 2 June 2009.
  30. ^ "Maeve Binchy visits Fair City tonight". RTÉ Ten. Raidió Teilifís Éireann. 14 December 2011. Retrieved 14 December 2011.
  31. ^ "National Portrait Gallery: Collections: Maeve Binchy". 1993. Retrieved 5 February 2012. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |websote= ignored (help)
  32. ^ National Portrait Gallery: Maeve Binchy.
  33. ^ "The Molesworth Gallery: Artists: Maeve McCarthy ARHA". MolesworthGallery.com. Retrieved 5 February 2012.
  34. ^ National Gallery unveils portrait of Maeve Binchy, National Gallery of Ireland, October 2005.
  35. ^ "Previous Winners of the Irish PEN / AT Cross Award for Literature". Irish Pen.
  36. ^ "People: Another gong for Maeve's mantelpiece". Irish Independent. Independent News & Media. 16 January 2007. Retrieved 16 January 2007.
  37. ^ Finneran, Aoife (31 July 2012). "Legendary writer Maeve Binchy dies, aged 72". The Sun. Retrieved 31 July 2012.
  38. ^ "Full House".
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