SOURCE: “A House Divided,” in Washington Post Book World, Vol. XXIX, No. 12, March 21, 1999, p. 6.

In the following review, Slung offers a mixed assessment of Tara Road, complaining that the characters and situations of the novel are less compelling than those of her earlier works.

The bad things that happen to good people are the building blocks of domestic fiction. Husbands and wives wake up strangers, friends betray one another, children die, luck deserts us. As we know, though, culture can influence the way the tale is told, in addition to the outcome.

For Irish novelist Maeve Binchy, for example, the notion of community is paramount. Whether her characters' troubles play themselves out against a backdrop of town or country, the individual dramas she presents can be seen as solos, with the narratives entire possessing a distinctly choral quality.

At this point in Binchy's career—Firefly Summer, Circle of...