Tara Road by Maeve Binchy

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An overview

Maeve Binchy’s Tara Road encompasses the life of one woman, named Ria, from girlhood through marriage, divorce, and renewal. The cast of characters in and out of Ria’s life, and all their idiosyncrasies, make this a full-bodied novel. The way Binchy is able to write, simply, about complex human emotion is quite admirable.

Main Body

Set in Dublin, Ireland, the story unfolds by introducing Ria, her older sister Hillary, and their single, working mom, Nora. Ria is just starting to go out with boys, while Hillary acts like she knows everything there is to know about men already.

The stage is set to bring the reader into their world…one where the wild hopes and dreams of the young girls come up against the fretful, practical, and religious parent trying to bring the girls up proper. Character building is such an important part of any story and Maeve Binchy is excellent at this.

By the time the girls grow into mature young women, seek jobs and husbands, and settle down, the reader easily feels they know the various characters like friends. There’s the lucky Ria, the loving, but bitter Hillary, curt and beautiful Rosemarie, stoic Nora, eager Dan, sly but friendly Barney and his quietly suffering wife, abused Gurdy, and more.

This cast keeps the story flowing interestingly and the reader feels part of the neighborhood. Then, suddenly, Ria’s world is turned upside down. In an interesting twist, the story takes on a completely new atmosphere. The shattered Ria completely extricates herself from everything—and utilizes a unique opportunity to do so. She accepts a house-swap offer from a woman in America.

This woman has heart-breaking issues of her own. She is going through a separation and dealing with the loss of her only son. Ria and her new house-swapping acquaintance, Marilyn, are both running and seeking at the same time.

What each thinks they will gain by crossing an ocean is unclear to them—but they jump at the chance to grasp, with the last bit of hope and sanity they have, whatever this “peek” into a different life might have to offer. They seem to settle-in wonderfully, and although they haven’t met, they keep in touch to see how the other is doing.

Their feelings flare a bit to learn that the other is enjoying things they held dear. Ria is “out and about” and getting to know the neighbors that Marilyn was very reclusive from. Marilyn is getting on, maybe a bit too well, with Ria’s neighbor and close friend, Colm. However, when the two women meet at the end of the swap, they find they have developed a new and endearing friendship.

The beauty of this book is the way Binchy takes what would otherwise be considered “gossip,” and turns it into an insightful and interesting look at human development. Binchy is a great storyteller. Out of her seemingly simplistic characters come wisdom, human suffering, hope, despair, intrigue, betrayal, and triumph.

An example of her talent is the scene where Ria and her husband, Dan, tell their two young children that they are going to get divorced. Binchy handles this delicate and heart breaking “fact-of-life” with dialogue, alone, and the reader feels he/she is standing right in the room looking helplessly from one broken character to another.

The Narration

I loved the narration. Katherine Borowitz makes the Irish brogue come right up out of the peat bogs at you.