ALSO BY MAEVE BINCHY
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
Copyright © 2014 by Gordon Snell
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House LLC, New York, a Penguin Random House company.
Simultaneously published in the United Kingdom by Orion Books, an imprint of the Orion Publishing Group Ltd. , a Hachette U. K. company, London.
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Binchy, Maeve. Chestnut Street / Maeve Binchy. — First Edition. pages cm ISBN 978-0-385-35185-0 (hardback) — ISBN 978-0-385-35186-7 (eBook) 1.
Families—Fiction. 2. Domestic fiction. I. Title. PR6052. 17728C53 2014 823’. 914—dc23 2013041009Jacket illustration by William Low Jacket design by Carol Devine Carson
v3. 1
Dolly’s Mother
It’s Only a Day
Fay’s New Uncle
A Problem of My Own
All That Matters
Joyce and the Blind Date
Liberty Green
The Cure for Sleeplessness
Miss Ranger’s Reward
Decision in Dublin
The Wrong Caption
Star Sullivan
Taxi Men Are Invisible
A Card for Father’s Day
The Gift of Dignity
The Investment
The Leap of Faith
Lilian’s Hair
Flowers from Grace
The Builders
Bucket Maguire
The Older Man
Philip and the Flower Arrangers
Reasonable Access
By the Time We Get to Clifden
The Women Who Righted Wrongs
The Sighting
The Lottery of the Birds
Madame Magic
Say Nothing
Eager to Please
Seeing Things Clearly
Fair Exchange
The Window Box
Finn’s Future
One Night a Year
The places Maeve created in her novels and stories—Knockglen, Castlebay, Mountfern, and so many others—became just as real for her readers as those of the real Ireland. In fact the Irish Tourist Board often had to explain to visitors that they couldn’t actually get on a bus or train to go and see them.
Chestnut Street, too, is fictional, but the Dublin portrayed there is very real: a city changing over the years in ways that come vividly to life in these stories of its residents and their families.