Circle of Friends (novel)
Circle of Friends is a 1990 novel by Maeve Binchy. It is set in Dublin and the fictitious town of Knockglen in rural Ireland during the 1950s, and centres around a group of university students.
Characters
As with her previous novels, Binchy writes about a large cast of characters:
- Benny Hogan - a sensitive, ungainly country girl from Knockglen.
- Eve Malone - a convent-raised orphan related to the Anglo-Irish Westward family.
- Nan Mahon - a beautiful, ambitious girl from a working-class Dublin family who seeks to marry into wealth.
- Jack Foley - a handsome, popular doctor's son who falls in love with Benny.
- Aidan Lynch - a likeable young man with a sense of humour who dates Eve.
- Simon Westward - Eve's first cousin and a member of the Protestant Anglo-Irish ascendancy class.
- Heather Westward - Simon's younger sister, who becomes attached to Eve.
- Sean Walsh - an odious young man who works for Benny's father and assumes he will marry into the family business.
- Mother Francis - the head of St. Mary's who brought up Eve Malone, whom she regards as a daughter.
- Kit Hegary - mother of Frank Hegarty who died in a motorcycle accident on his first day of university. She takes in Eve and gives her accommodation enabling her to attend university.
Plot
Large-boned, soft-featured Benny, an adored only daughter, and Eve, the wiry orphan brought up by the nuns, are best friends in the small fictitious Irish town of Knockglen. On their first day at University College Dublin, an accident brings the pair together with fellow students Nan Mahon and Jack Foley, and new friendships are quickly forged. But beneath their carefree student existence, trouble is brewing for the circle of friends. Benny, the good-natured clown of the group, always seems to draw the short straw in life, while Nan, selfish and very attractive, takes what she wants without expecting to pay for it. And Eve, intensely loyal to Benny, and resentful of Nan’s careless optimism, becomes obsessed with the need to avenge Benny’s disappointments.
References
External links
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Works by Maeve Binchy
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