The Captive Reader

I woke up Thursday morning only to be greeted by an unexpected head cold and a winter wonderland outside.  Neither of these things pleased me, head colds and snow both being messy and uncomfortable.  Thank goodness I was in the middle of reading Firefly Summer by Maeve Binchy, since these are the kinds of circumstances for which her books are best suited.

Published in 1987, Firefly Summer follows the residents of the small village of Mountfern over several years during the 1960s.  Patrick O’Neill, a rich American with family roots in Mountfern, arrives with plans to buy the old estate that has been in ruins since the 1920s and build in its place a huge hotel.  After years of seeing their children and sibling emigrate overseas, the promise of jobs and of more customers for existing business thanks to the tourist trade causes all sorts of excitement in the village.  Even people like the Ryan family, who run the pub closest to the estate and stand to lose business when the hotel opens, can’t help but be excited about the changes, though they are concerned for their own future.  But the consequences of Patrick O’Neill’s hotel project turn out to be far more devastating than anyone could have dreamed and the lives of many of those in the once sleepy town where nothing ever changed are upset forever.

This isn’t Maeve Binchy’s finest book but it is still a great read and it was perfect for my cold-fuzzed brain.  While the O’Neills and the Ryans are the focus of the story – both the adults and their closely-entwined teenage children – the other villagers and a few outside characters are also wonderfully described and fleshed out, no matter how minor their role, from the tramp who merely passes through to the hairdresser who moonlights as a prostitute.  Binchy does a particularly excellent job with Patrick O’Neill.  So proud of his Irish heritage, he is determined to make his home in Mountfern though it is obvious to everyone there that he quintessentially American.  The combination of awe and contempt that greets him is perfectly done, with some villagers impressed by his confidence and wealth while others resent it heartily.  He is a good man, though not an easy one to get along with, and as he faces problem after problem, with both the project and his difficult son, it is impossible not to warm to him.

It is this balance of attractive and unattractive qualities in her characters that makes Binchy’s book so interesting to me.  Very rarely does she have anyone who is entirely perfect or entirely evil – the main weakness of this book is the almost cartoon-like villainy of Patrick’s son Kerry.   Usually, characters are a complex meld of good and bad traits.  Kate Ryan, whose husband runs one of the village’s pubs, is bright and warm and clever but can also be short-tempered and shrewish with the soft-spoken husband she adores.  Rachel Fine is a thoughtful, generous, sympathetic divorcee from New York but she is also O’Neill’s mistress and has been part of his life since before his wife’s death.  Binchy does not pass judgements on her characters and we get to see all the sides of them.

Firefly Summer may not be the best example of Binchy’s powers – it is far too long and the ending felt rushed and overly dramatic – but it is still an enjoyable book and a great example of her excellent characterization.  She also manages to deal with real tragedies in a very truthful way, marking their significance and impact on the characters without exaggerating the consequences in a melodramatic manner.   This is light fiction, certainly, but of the best and most intelligent kind.