Maeve Binchy: An appreciation

Maeve Binchy, who died Monday at age 72, wrote about an Ireland on the cusp of change.

Irish writer Maeve Binchy is shown during a 2001 book tour. (Getty Images)

It's a place where birth control was illegal for decades, but young women still found a way to have sex outside of marriage. It's a place where children of poor, working class families -- instructed in the rigid class system of a Catholic state -- grew up to be ambitious, accomplished and sometimes even affluent people. It's a place where a slow, rural life in which everyone knows your business gives way to a busier urban life -- in which everyone knows your business.

Early in her career, Binchy's Ireland offered little to its underemployed children save the chance to emigrate. But later, in books like Quentins and Scarlet Feather, she chronicled the joys of life in the Celtic Tiger, with its rising real estate values and growing business opportunities.

Binchy chronicled her homeland's struggle to become part of the contemporary Western world through the lives of ordinary people, specifically women. Her particular talent was writing about the transitional period young people face in their late teens and early 20s, when they make important decisions about how to live their lives. She understood the role personal character played in decision-making and her international renown came from the skill with which she portrayed each individual in her novels and stories.

In tributes from her Irish compatriots, she's described as a "beloved" writer. It's the right adjective because her books combine the self-examination of Jane Austen with the juicy plotting of a daytime soap.

Circle of Friends, which was made into a 1995 movie starring Minnie Driver, is a particular favourite of mine. It follows the big, good-natured and soft Benny Hogan as she moves from a rural town into the wider world of university in Dublin. There, a double-cross by a former friend costs her the man she loves. I've always considered Binchy very much like her character Benny: generous, warm hearted, funny and -- underneath her exterior -- extraordinarily perceptive. She'll be missed.