Nic Jones talks to bestselling author Maeve Binchy about her novel Nights of Rain and Stars, her affinity for Greece, and why listeners think her cousin Kate is her daughter.

Transcript of Maeve Binchy's audio interview with Nic Jones

Hello. I'm Nic Jones, and I've had the pleasure of producing 11 Orion audio books, in which Kate Binchy records her cousin Maeve's stories. I visited Maeve at her home near Dublin to ask some informal questions.

Greek Islands

NJ: One of the things that intrigued me in Nights of Rain and Stars is that you seem to know a lot about the Greek islands. How did that come about?

MB: When I was young - what I consider now to be very young; in my early 20's - I was a school teacher and had long holidays, and a friend of mine was working in a villa in Greece, and she was cooking for British holidaymakers, and so I used to go out and sleep on the roof of her villa and we got terribly friendly with all the people in the Greek village and ever since then I've returned to see the people again. I wouldn't say I know a great deal about them all, but certainly the music, and the smells, the sound, and the feeling of it is as familiar to me - and it's been part of my life for about 40 years.

NJ: Over the years, you've managed to write often about the clash, or the similarities, between cultures, and you've picked up on Ireland versus America for Tara Road, and now you've done it for Greece, and you've also managed to include Italy and things in Evening Class. Are these all experiences you've drawn on?

MB: Yes, I have travelled quite a lot. When I was young, again, I was always afraid that I would die before I saw the whole world. There are places now I'm never going to go. I'm never going to walk the Great Wall of China . . . [laughs]

NJ: [laughs]

MB: . . . and I'm probably too far gone to be able to go into the South American rainforest. But I was always very surprised, especially when my books would start to be published, and they're in so many languages now - they're in over 30 languages - and you say to yourself, "What could people, in all these countries, find in my books?" And yet, I think, we're all the same, anywhere.

NJ: Indeed.

MB: I think that people . . . y'know, we all have hopes and dreams and ambitions and we all think if we're good we'll be happy, and I'm never bored, 'cause I can see people the whole time, and I wonder what that person is when I see him coming out of a railway station, or sitting at a caf. Why is his face so sad? Has his wife left him; has his son gone on drugs; has he been made redundant? And everybody is a hero or a dramatic person in their own story if you just know where to look.

Journalism

NJ: Did some of that come from your time in journalism here in Ireland?

MB: Well, I think being a journalist is very important, in one sense, about being a writer, because one of the things you know is you have to write something - and journalists always say, "Don't get it right, get it written", which is a very, very good motto, because when you have to have something written be 6 o'clock that day, you know it has to be done, because the paper cannot appear with a small blank paragraph, saying, "Maeve Binchy was not able to think of anything to say".

NJ: [laughs]

MB: So, therefore, you get it written, and it stops your terror of the empty page.

NJ: Unless you're Jeffrey Barnard, yes.

MB: [laughs]

NJ: Does that mean you find writing novels a kind of relaxation by comparison?

MB: Well, I've retired from the newspaper business now, and I concentrate on novels and short stories, and I do find it a relaxation, I really do. I mean, we're sitting here at my desk here now, and I have loads of notes in big wire baskets for the next thing that I'm going to be writing, and I never find it a chore or dreary.

NJ: Yet you announced with Scarlet Feather that was going to be the last of your novels, and yet here we are now with another full-length novel. MB: I know it sounds a little bit like a Tenor's farewell, y'know, backing shyly onto the stage again, but in my mind the whole thing is completely consistent. When I was 60, I was tired, very, very tired. I was giving up my newspaper column, and also, I really did find my health was not hugely great, and I just found it very, very hard to do these promotion tours. So, I then said to the publishers, "Is it alright if I just write the books quietly at my desk and send them in to you?", and I think they thought it was better than nothing. [laughs]

NJ: [laughs]

MB: So that's what I do now.

NJ: I'm sure it pleases all your worldwide readership, anyway.

Cousin Kate

MB: Well, it's always very, very pleasing to hear from people, and very often, because Kate has a very light voice, very light, young voice, people often assume she's my daughter.

NJ: She's certainly very good at the children that crop up in your stories.

MB: Well, that's very tactful of you, but she does actually sound about 30 years younger than I do, and it's very nice to be able to have this conversation and to be able to speak about her, and to say to people we're friends, because over and over I get postcards from people, saying, "I've enjoyed your daughter reading your work", and my so-called daughter is actually a year older than I am. [laughs]

NJ: [laughs] I've seen it even reproduced in some of the reviews of the works. Maeve, thank you very much for giving us your time now. It's been a great pleasure to hear a bit of the background about your stories.