Maeve Binchy imagined a street in Dublin with many characters coming and going, and every once in a while she would write about one of these people. She would then put it in a drawer; “for the future,” she would say. The future is now.
Across town from St. Jarlath’s Crescent, featured in Minding Frankie, is Chestnut Street, where neighbors come and go. Behind their closed doors we encounter very different people with different life circumstances, occupations, and sensibilities. Some of the unforgettable characters lovingly brought to life by Binchy are Bucket Maguire, the window cleaner, who must do more than he bargained for to protect his son; Nessa Byrne, whose aunt visits from America every summer and turns the house—and Nessa’s world—upside down; Lilian, the generous girl with the big heart and a fiancé whom no one approves of; Melly, whose gossip about the neighbors helps Madame Magic, a self-styled fortune-teller, get everyone on the right track; Dolly, who discovers more about her perfect mother than she ever wanted to know; and Molly, who learns the cure for sleeplessness from her pen pal from Chicago . . .
Chestnut Street is written with the humor and understanding that are earmarks of Maeve Binchy’s extraordinary work and, once again, she warms our hearts with her storytelling.
From the Hardcover edition.
If You’re a Maeve Binchy Fan … …. then you know what to expect & you will enjoy this book. What the reader should know is that this isn’t a novel, but a collection of short stories about people who live on Chestnut Street. The stories don’t really intertwine much, other than a random comment about a neighbor mentioned in a prior chapter. If you are someone who has heard about the wonderful books written by Maeve Binchy and want to read your first, I would recommend you start with a different book – one of her complete…
Truly, undoubtedly Binchy Maeve Binchy passed away in 2012, but, fortunately, her husband Gordon Snell decided, after many “not now’s” from Ms. Binchy while she lived, the time was right to publish this collection of short stories.CHESTNUT STREET is a collection of thirty-six short stories all set on Chestnut Street, which, as Mr. Snell points out in the preface, is a fictional street in Dublin. Each story is from the point of view of a different resident on this horseshoe-shaped street,…
One of the World’s Best Storytellers Remains with Her Readers in “Chestnut Street” ***this review is based on an uncorrected proof of the soon-to-be-published hardcover edition***A big thank you to Gordon Snell, Maeve’s beloved husband, and to Alfred A. Knopf for allowing us to enjoy another brilliant short story collection by Binchy. ‘Chestnut Street’ (due to be released spring 2014) isn’t a novel, but rather 36 short stories written by the author over a period of years about the residents of a fictional neighborhood in Ireland. Since my sons were very young,…