Glass Lake ANNOTATION
Lough Glass is at the heart and soul of the town clinging to its shore. But beneath its serene surface, the lake harbors secrets as unfathomable as the beautiful woman who night after night walks beside its waters. A luminous novel of love, obsession, and the secrets that take root in the human heart, by the author of Circle of Friends (soon to be a major motion picture).
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Lough Glass is at the heart and soul of the namesake town clinging to its shore. They say that if you go out on St. Agnes' Eve and look into the lake at sunset you can see your future. But beneath its serene surface, the lake harbors secrets as dark and unfathomable as the beautiful woman who walks beside its waters. Lough Glass is home to Kit McMahon, in a way it will never be to her ravishing mother, Helen, the Dubliner with film-star looks who found an unlikely mate in genial chemist Martin McMahon. Kit adores her mother, but can't escape the memory of her, seen through a window, alone at the kitchen table, eyes wide, blind, tears streaming down her face. Kit's best friend and enemy, Clio Kelly with her casual cruelties and unexpected kindnesses, is first to share the gossip about the exotic and elusive Helen - until the terrible night Martin's boat is found drifting upside down in the lake. The night Helen is lost. The night Kit discovers a letter from her mother on Martin's pillow and burns it, unopened, in the grate. The night everything changes forever. As Kit and Clio are swept into passionate young adulthood, Kit is haunted by an unspoken guilt - for which only Sister Madeleine, the hermit who lives in the woods, can offer absolution - and by a dream of the life that might have been. In The Glass Lake, Maeve Binchy explores the unspoken language between mothers and daughters in an extraordinary story of a mother's secret, a daughter's courage, and the hidden bond between them that neither deceit nor death can destroy.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Irish novelist Binchy's latest saga of family loyalties and secrets spent 12 weeks on PW's bestseller list. (Apr.)
Library Journal
Fans of Binchy's novels (e.g., Circle of Friends, LJ 12/90) won't be dissatisfied with her latest effort. Once again, she focuses on the inhabitants of a small town in Ireland. Helen, wife and mother of the McMahon household, is presumed to have drowned in a nearby lake. Actually, she shook off her dull, staid life and fled to London with her lover. Successful at business, she yearns for some communication with her now teenaged daughter, Kit. She begins a casual correspondence with Kit under the guise of being an old friend of her mother. The story continues with readers wondering if and when Kit will discover the truth about her mother and what impact that realization will have on their lives. Binchy writes a good tale, demanding that her readers accept the improbable and appreciate a well-timed coincidence. Suitable if not necessary for public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/1/94.]-Margaret Hanes, Sterling Heights P.L., Mich.
School Library Journal
YA-With the popularity of the film version of Binchy's Circle of Friends, this story, which traces the developments in the lives of two young friends in a small Irish town in the '50s, is likely to have wide appeal. The heroine, Kit, is shown to be at odds with her best friend, Clio, from the first scene. The differences in their values and emotions persist and separate them as the years pass. The life of Kit's beautiful mother unfolds in a concurrent plot line. Helen is generally believed to have died in a tragic drowning. She has, however, gone off with a lover. The story of her business successes and romantic complexities parallels her daughter's years of maturing, providing Kit and readers with ironic insights as she and a very few of the townspeople become aware of the woman's new life. A big, easy, comfortable read.-Frances Reiher, King's Park Library, Burke, VA
BookList - Mary Carroll
Lough Glass ("green lake" in Gaelic) is the one-street Irish village to which pharmacist Martin McMahon brought his lovely bride, Mary Helena Healy, before World War II. Dubliner Helen loved a man who had deserted her, but promised she would be honest with Martin and would do her best to love him. When Helen leaves in 1952, she writes Martin a note, but her 12-year-old daughter, Kit, knowing Helen was unhappy and fearing she has drowned herself, burns the note. Weeks later, a body is found and identified as Helen McMahon. Binchy follows the McMahons and their friends through the next 10 years: Helen (now Lena) poses as the wife of her feckless lover, Louis Gray, and builds up a successful employment agency in London; Kit, her brother Emmet, her friend Clio, and other young villagers pass through adolescence to university and professional schools; and Martin McMahon finally discovers a more comfortable sort of marital love with Clio's aunt, Maura. Weaving through these years are Helen/Lena's efforts to help her daughter and maintain some sort of contact, which spunky Kit first welcomes, then rejects, and finally learns to cherish. Another satisfying if sentimental read from the best-selling author of Circle of Friends (1991) and The Copper Beech (1992).
AudioFile - Robin F. Whitten
The first lilting phrases draw listeners into the life of the small Irish village, Lough Glass. Fionnula Flanagan is the perfect storyteller for Binchyﾽs compelling story of mother and daughter. Their changing relationship, viewed with a soft lens, is beautifully reflected in Flanaganﾽs interpretation. Flanagan effortlessly conveys the adolescent voices of Kit and Clio, the gentle, venerable speech of reclusive Sister Madeline and the firm strength of Helen McMahon. Flanaganﾽs voice can be soft and gentle as an Irish mist or spirited and sharp when the story demands. She captures the characters through her excellent narration and delights the listener with this quietly compelling tale. R.F.W. ﾽAudioFile, Portland, Maine
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