EP 4
Best selling popular fiction author Patricia Scanlan on Maeve Binchy.
In the 1970’s and 80’s Maeve Binchy reigned supreme as the queen of Irish popular fiction. Her success showed a new generation of Irish female writers that it was possible to make a good living from writing warm, romantic relatable stories based in Ireland – and the first of that new generation of ‘Maeve’s Babes’ was Glasnevin Librarian-turned-author’ Patricia Scanlon.
When Patricia hit the number one bestseller spot with her first novel ‘City Girl’ in 1990, she feared that her role model Maeve might crankily see it as a grab for her throne!
But the opposite was true – and Maeve became a supportive champion of the new wave.
Maeve Binchy didn’t just create the market, she supported her ‘usurpers’ and for that Patricia Scanlon is eternally grateful.
That gratefulness informs this tribute to her writing hero, a tribute that takes Patricia from Maeve’s privileged upbringing in Dalkey to her teaching years in Dublin and her firebrand journalism years as a crusader for women’s issues in the Irish Times.
Beset by health issues, Patricia discovers a determined woman who let nothing get in the way of her prolific output and a formidable perfectionist who soldiered on despite chronic pain to keep writing to the very end.