As readers to my page know, I have had a bit of a Marian Keyes spell of reading, so I thought I would have a change. Not much of a change, to be fair, as I returned to a previous favourite for easy reading, in Maeve Binchy. Again, another Irish female author, and one who I trust to give me a good yarn at the end of a busy day.
I was given several hard back copies of her novels by my sister, one of which was ‘Heart and Soul’. I have read this as a stand alone novel, but just read another review which has told me that it was a sequel to Whitethorn Woods. I have Whitethorn Woods to read, also, so I feel a bit let down that I wasn’t made aware of this by the author when I was choosing which book to start with. That said, I may not have enjoyed the book as much as I have done, if I was referring back to the first novel as I read Heart and Soul.
There is a prologue to the novel, which sets the scene of a Dublin hospital, St Brigid’s, where there is a disused warehouse set in the middle of a road system, and in a derelict area that is ripe for regeneration. The prologue introduces Frank
Ennis, the hospital’s financial manager, who wants to sell off this ‘white elephant’ and plough the money back into the main hospital to upgrade the services already in place. He has a poor opinion of modern medicine, and a poor opinion of professional women (if he ever thinks of women at all). He is outvoted, and instead, there is a change of usage for the warehouse, and it is turned into a heart clinic for outpatients to recover from their heart attacks in a holistic manner. This is to include a body of professionals, including physiotherapists, dietitians, a junior doctor, and the head of department Clara Casey, heart consultant. There are various sub characters, who make up the rest of the staff, or the patients and their families.
The way the novel is set out, is by way of focussing on different characters and their home life, with each chapter. These characters are united by their role in the heart clinic. Frank Ennis notices that they are like a sub-culture, and move as one, when he visits to try to enforce his own rules about what can be achieved in the clinic. The staff join forces, and run their clinic with very little input or influence from the main hospital.
The format of the book is excellent if, like me, you have limited time for reading. I tend to read one or two chapters each night before falling asleep, and this is easy when the chapters come to a natural conclusion, so I am not enticed to keep reading beyond my curfew.
The stories of the personal lives weave in and out of the main plot effortlessly. We are moved out of the clinic and into the houses of the families who attend. We are moved across to Poland to see why the young Ania came to Dublin, for instance. It is a very charming novel, and easy to get into, despite the 451 pages.
If we are to believe Maeve, life in Dublin is very naïve and although she touches on the harsh realities of racism, classism, sexism, it is done on a very superficial way, and is not a ‘punchy’ novel that haunts you when you put the book down, as other books may do.
It all seems so effortless in the setting up of the clinic, the employment of staff, the managing the clients. But then, I am reading a pleasurable book and not a non-fiction account from the department of Health!
Getting back to the author, I remember that this is why I stopped reading her before. She is just too nice. However, I do remember the plot lines of her previous novels, which surprises me as there are many books that I have read since and have forgotten what they were about.
Maeve Binchy was born in 1940, and prior to becoming a novelist, she was a teacher and then a journalist with the Irish Times. Her first novel was published in 1982, and called Light A Penny Candle. Since retiring from writing in 2000, she has managed to write four more novels, and (according to Wikipedia) I am interested to read that they are called “Quentins” (this is interesting as the restaurant, and characters are the same as in Heart and Soul); Night of Rain and Stars (no further information available) and the aforementioned Whitethorn Woods.
I imagine that if you are a keen Maeve Binchy reader, then you would gain comfort from the emergence of the same characters, a bit like reading a soap. Maeve has enabled the reader to read the books as ‘one off’s’ too, as I have done.
I find that, in comparing Maeve with Marian, I think Marian has taken some of this into her own writing. Marian has used the village of Knockavoy heavily throughout her novels, although she doesn’t use the same characters (or not that I have noticed yet).
So, do I recommend Heart and Soul? Yes, definitely. In fact, I have already loaned it to an Irish colleague as she had been looking for a new novel to read.
I have looked on Amazon, and this book retails at £10.86.
The ISBN is: 978-1-4072-1491-7.
The author has her own website at www.maevebinchy.com
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
exceptional by (2%):
very helpful by (98%):
