She gently advises and guides without seeming to do so, giving each a focal point in their lives – the twice-weekly evening classes.

With her inner strength and sense of purpose, linked together with her gentleness and humility, Signora is the Italian teacher who becomes the catalyst that brings out the best in each of her pupils. Held in an old annex and using makeshift tables and boxes, the Italian class gradually and inexorably draws the students closer as the strands of their lives are interwoven. The smells and sounds of Dublin abound as the author contrasts the upper-class areas (with their restaurants and wealthy clientele) to the council estates (where the occupants are either out of work or struggling to make ends meet).īinchy also describes the simpler lifestyle of Sicily (where Signora lived for twenty-six years) and the traditions that abound there, contrasting it with the exhilaration of Rome with its bridges, monuments, and the Papal audience in St Peter’s Square.īased at Mountainview School in the poorest part of Dublin, people who would not normally meet are drawn together by the opportunity of studying Italian at the new ‘evening class’. Having grown up in Dublin, Binchy paints the scenes with the clarity of personal knowledge so that they spring from the page in all their varying colours and shapes. Each one is alive, vibrant and utterly credible. She reaches into the souls of the various major characters, their hopes and aspirations, their worries and doubts, their faults and inner feelings of unworthiness, so that all become complete individuals. Written in simple language, the author finds no need for overdrawn characterisations, unbelievable lifestyles, or sabre-rattling adventures.

Evening class by maeve binchy