This...was an absolute waste of my time. When I think of the time I could've spent studying, there's a sense of emptiness in me that Maeve Binchy has stolen a day or two of my life that I will never get back. No, no...it's more than that...it's like a sense of betrayal even. Maeve was supposed to be funny. She was supposed to be funny and witty, like she was when she wrote Aches and Pains. This is one of the reasons one should never go reading a book expecting anything. In retrospect, I thought that Tara Road would be about, I don’t know…strangers who keep meeting each other on the road and have a chat about their everyday life and maybe the story could expand to some sort of adventure/mystery thing, I don’t know. Here’s what Tara Road is actually about:Woman from poor family background meets man from poor family background. Man has a dream to buy the house he’s currently boarding and transform it. The woman is Ria and the man, Dan, known for most of the book as Danny Lynch, and right from the start Maeve wants you to be a little wary of him. Why else would she give him the name “Lynch”? It wouldn’t make sense. She made this character out to be an all-charming, handsome, sociable, loving, wily, and extremely likable man with ambition, and off she goes and names him “Lynch”. Back to the story: By some form of twisted luck and through Dan’s craftiness, they get the house, and go on to fill it with wonderful treasures blahblah. Ria is pregnant, Danny is irresistibly handsome , and because he’s helping his adulterous new boss and boss’ mistress, he’s not there for the birth of his first child. Also, at the time, some alcoholic skanky girl was trying to seduce him. Since he didn’t fall for anything, we assume he’s ever loyal. Then it goes on to say Danny has affairs. Danny ends affairs. Ria is oblivious. Ria has a friend Gertie who married an abusive alcoholic. Ria’s mother is the town gossip, and her sister is a sad scrooge. Boohoo. Ria has another friend Rosemary who nobody appears to like even though, and maybe even because, she’s successful and hot. Gertie cleans her friend's houses for her husband’s drinking money. Ria has another baby, baby grows up. Ria’s daughter accidentally sees Rosemary having sex, traumatized for life. Rosemary has funky feelings for a man named Colm (who owns a restaurant, is oddly protective of his sister, and grows his vege behind Ria’s house on Tara Road). Colm is always helpful, and that's about the only use for him in the story. Ria wants a third baby. She approaches Danny, and finds out he’s got another girl pregnant. Cries, cries, begs him to come back. Children are heartbroken. Ria spies on preggo and her mom, and finds out the dear mom is her age. Awkward. There’s some BS about a fortuneteller, but that isn’t in any way relevant to the story. In fact, a good chunk of the book is just Maeve Binchy’s way of telling trees and environmental activists that they can sod off because barring any divine intervention she’s going to ramble on and on unnecessarily about characters that I personally can’t relate to and a story that should have taken a whole lot less than 200 pages to flesh out. One consolation, Hallelujah, is that she filled the pages with whole paragraphs of words instead of the name of each passing month.And lo and behold, was I shocked when I came to chapter 4. I hadn’t realized there’d been any chapters in this never-ending jumble of words and more words, let alone reached chapter 4. So, just for this review, I flipped back and hah…there’s chapter 1, and there’s chapter 4, with nothing between or after. I’m surprised she put a pause there at all. I suppose it’s to indicate a passage of time. Either that, or she wanted to bring it to my attention I’d hit page 200, and there’d be 288 pages of fun left to go. FM.So on and on I did read, and suddenly, this American woman Marilyn is literally thrown in out of nowhere, looking to do a house exchange. And then I thought: Shit. It would’ve been so much more interesting as a book had I been introduced to Marilyn at roughly the same point as Ria. It wouldn’t have been hard to do really… to stuff her into that 200 pages and take a bit out of Ria’s story. Maeve Binchy enjoys weaving out of other characters’ lives around Ireland like a drunk driver. I expected to be ambushed with another 200-page introduction to the life of Marilyn, but fortunately, Maeve cannot stay away from Ria, sweet, weak, wonderful chef, ever loving mother, doting wife, innocent, tolerant, moral Ria. Flawless in all ways but her blindness to any living souls’ faults.Eventually, the house exchange begins, and the two women never meet. Ria is all about being around people, whereas Marilyn is a recluse. Ria finds herself a new bunch of friends, and Marilyn is set up by Ria to be ambushed by her own friends and family. Eventually as things go, they fit in, and grow in ways they never had to and heal. One can see a mile away that Marilyn is running from something, and it’s obvious to everyone, if not Ria, that Marilyn lost her son Dale. To save the trouble of having to endure 200 pages of this, the gist is:1)tRia attracts the attention of Marilyn’s brother-in-law. Learns how to email. Learns about the true story behind Dale’s death that is totally redundant.2)tRia’s children—Annie and Brian—help Marilyn get over the loss of her son.3)tRia’s children stay with her in USA for the second month of her stay. Two boys rival for Annie’s attention, one of whom is Gertie’s (alcoholic’s wife) nephew.4)tMarilyn helps Cobb’s sister (who is revealed to be a heroin addict, eventually clearing all absurd accusations that they committed incest) to break the addiction5)tMarilyn walks in on Rosemary cheating with Danny Lynch. She uses this to blackmail Rosemary into helping Ria with her new career in the food-export business.6)tDanny and his adulterous boss, Barney McCarthy, suffer major losses in business and nearly go bankrupt. They have to sell Tara Road7)tDanny Lynch visits Ria in the US of A to tell her this and ends up sleeping with her. 8)tDanny’s mistress loses the baby. Danny does not go back to Ria.9)tBarney McCarthy’s wife saves them all from the brink of bankruptcy, on several conditions, one of which includes leaving his mistress.10)tGertie’s abusive alcoholic of a husband dies. Everyone shows up at his funeral. Gertie rewrites history to say he was the best husband in the whole world.11)tFortuneteller disappears. All her predictions were accurate. Whoopie for her.All in all, this is a damn gossipy book. I wasn’t bored reading it, and that’s about as high a praise that can be heaped on this colossal waste of time. I found no satisfaction at all from reading it. I wouldn’t even call it a beach-read, because it’s just too full of negativity. But perhaps I don’t enjoy it because it wasn’t intended for my age group, but that’s hardly an excuse is it? There are books people would enjoy at age 60 just as much as they would if they were 16. Oh well, if I feel like wasting another day of my life I’ll pick it up again at age 40 maybe, and perhaps then, I would appreciate the so-called “light-hearted” cynicism/realism Cow Poo. I sincerely hope not.
I agreed to read Tara Road simply because the binding of the novel looked worn. I thought to myself, "how terrible of a book could it be if others had loved it with marked creases." As soon as I picked it up, part of me began regretting the decision. I could not find any redeeming qualities.The novel begins with Ria, a young Irish girl talking to her sister about love and relationships. This, I imagine is used as a backdrop to illustrate the naivete of Ria (short for Maria) in the land of love. Within a couple of pages we are joining Ria as a young adult, befriending another young Irish woman (Rosemary) and meeting the love of her life, Danny. Ria and Danny quickly marry, find a grande home, and begin having children. Their lives are intermingled with family members, co-workers, and neighbors all living on or closely to Tara Road (hence the title). This continues on for nearly (or more?) 250 pages. The conversations are painful; in fact, it was unbelievable for me to believe that they were taking place in the 1980's-1990's. Historically, I understood that Ireland's culture is vastly different than America's (i.e. divorce being introduced and accepted at the turn of the century), but the dialogue amongst the Irish characters seemed outdated.The novel only becomes slightly more interesting after Danny leaves Ria for a pregnant younger woman which results in Ria embarking on a journey across seas as she swaps houses with an American, Marilyn. Marilyn's story joins the Ria drama as she begins to acquaint herself with the members of Tara Road and we discover why she ran away from her life in the States. Unfortunately, right when my interest is slightly captivated, it dwindles again. For another hundred pages I silently shudder at Ria's petulant behavior over her life's outcome. The feminist in me seriously wants to slap her and ask, "Are you serious?".So why did I give it a 3 star rating? Because in spite of the characters appearing rather flat, the character tree branching so far out that I had to stop many times to recount who the person was in the story, the unrealistic dialogue (from the American even!), and the frustration at how many parts of the story meandered, I found myself carry about their lives. Caring enough that I lost a few hours of sleep on a work night to finish.Would I recommend this book to someone? I don't think so. (Although I am sure that it has been heavily read as I realize it's part of the Oprah Book Club). Somewhere between a legacy and a soap opera lies the wasteland...*shrug* or Tara Road.
What do You think about Tara Road (2000)?
There was a time in my life I would have turned away from a book because of it's size. This one would have gotten passed because of this size. I'm glad I didn't pass it up.Maria (Ria) is a very unselfish woman living in Ireland on Tera Road. Her life fell into her hands by the luck of her husband, Danny, and his real estate working with Barney McCarthey. This is a tale of many lies revolving around these men, with wives who turn a cheek to their indiscretions. Ria is very social and her friends and neighbors play an important role in this well written story. Some of the friends turn to be anything but that by the end though. Through a chance phone call Ria's life takes a turn for the better. After receiving some very upsetting news from her husband, Ria has the opportunity to leave her troubles behind and spend the summer in America by swapping homes with Marilyn. Marilyn has her own share of heartaches that need to be handled and gladly accepts the house swap for 2 months to escape to a new land as well.This book was very well written, and caught my interest from the beginning. I can not wait to pick up another book by Maeve Binchy. She is a wonderful author.
—Heather
I loved this book!I had never read anything before from Maeve Binchy and this book made me a big time fan! I had read a review of her latest book "A Week In Winter", but happened to come across Tara Road so I got it. The author just recently died sadly. Tara Road is set in Dublin Ireland. The charterers truly come to life. At first I thought it might be a bit difficult to keep track of who's who because there are quite a few characters in the story, but that was not the case at all it was quite easy to follow. I really enjoyed the sense of humor in this book as well. It is also very sad but so true to life. The main woman in the story Ria thinks all is well in her life. She Marry's the man of her dreams Danny are they are both so in love. Even though Ria's own family seems to question Danny's serenity. He is too good looking a charmer. Ria's own sister can't fathom him wanting someone like Ria who's not a beauty queen. She has a big heart, and is a very good person but she too can't quite believe he wants her and loves her. He does really care about Ria and finds a way to get her this big beautiful dream home for them to raise their family.. But Danny isn't half the person Ria is. Ria has a hard time seeing his faults, she wants to be the perfect wife and mother. Unfortunately Danny doesn't appreciate the great woman he has. Everything she does to try to make their home a happy one seems to just annoy Danny. I won't give this story away because so much happens. I will say a certain part totally shocked me when I read it!! I don't think a book has ever caught me so off guard on finding out about something... I actually said out loud, Oh My God what?!!!!!No Spoilers here..... Ria decides after getting a phone call from a total stranger whom had met Danny years earlier, to switch homes with this woman in America for 2 months, while the woman Marilyn lives in Ria's home in Dublin. There are reasons both woman want to do this for themselves. I better end this review now! It's so hard to tell about this book without giving anything away I hope I didn't make it sound complicated it's really not and so very good. I laughed, and cried. I highly recommend it!!!
—Maria Zivalich
Really Lisa? You must have been catatonic to have missed the great story telling that is Tara Road! I've read this book more than a few times ...what a great storyteller Maeve Binchey is! Your loss!
—LISA
