The Glass Lake
 | |
| Author | Maeve Binchy |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Romance novel |
| Publisher | Orion Publishing |
Publication date | 2 September 1994 |
| Publication place |  Ireland |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 608 pp (first edition, hardback) |
| ISBN | 1-85797-950-8 (first edition, hardback) |
| Preceded by | The Copper Beech |
| Followed by | Evening Class |
The Glass Lake is a 1994 novel by the Irish author Maeve Binchy. The action takes place in a rural Irish village in the 1950s, as well as in London. It is notable as the last of Binchy's novels to be set in the 1950s. Binchy explores the roles of women in Irish society and inconstant lovers, and uses an operatic plot to hold the reader's attention.
Plot
Helen McMahon disappears when her daughter Kit is 12 years old, and it is suspected that she drowned in the local lake. Kit finds a letter from her mother and burns it before reading it, fearing that a suicide note will prevent her from meriting a church burial.[1] In fact, Helen has left her kindly but unexciting husband Martin and two children to run off to London to be with her dashing lover.[2]
Kit struggles to grow up without her mother and with the stigma of her mother's death. While Kit has many friends and mentors to help her grow, she forges a close relationship via a pen pal relationship with a woman named Lena Gray, who claims to have been a close friend of Helen.[2] The story then traces the fallout of Kit finding out that her mother is not dead and is in fact Lena Gray.
Themes
Like Tara Road, in which Binchy introduces an American character to an Irish town, The Glass Lake offers readers a look at the lives of women in another country – namely, England, to which Lena escapes with her lover. This plot device plays up the "Irishness" of the other protagonists and reinforces the self-identity of Binchy's Irish women readers.[3]
Priests, brothers, and nuns are all featured in this and other early works by Binchy. In The Glass Lake, Bincy creates the character of Sister Madeleine, an all-knowing, tolerant, and giving woman who lives as a hermit on the edge of town. Binchy's husband, Gordon Snell, asked her to "tone down" Sister Madeleine's goodness after reading the first draft and finding the character "too soppy" and "too sentimental". However, "she remains the most wholly admirable person in the story".[4]
Reception
As of 1998, The Glass Lake was Ireland's best-selling book of all time.[5]
References
- ^ "The Glass Lake". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved December 31, 2018.
- ^ a b "The Glass Lake". Kirkus Reviews. December 1, 1994. Retrieved December 31, 2018.
- ^ Steinberger, Rebecca (2006), "Maeve Binchy (1940– )", in Gonzalez, Alexander G. (ed.), Irish Women Writers: An A-to-Z Guide, Greenwood Publishing Group, p. 21, ISBN 0313328838
- ^ Kenny, Mary (Winter 2004). "Irish and Catholic Values in the Work of Maeve Binchy". Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review. 93 (372): 431. JSTOR 30095714.
- ^ Rabinovich, Dina (September 1, 1998). "The Storyseller". The Guardian. Retrieved December 30, 2018.