If you’ve ever read and enjoyed Maeve Binchy’s “Quentins,” you’d surely enjoy reading “The Tavern on Maple Street” by Sharon Owens as well. While Quentins was set in Dublin and The Tavern on Maple Street was set in Belfast, both authors shared an uncanny ability of offering glimpses into pub life in Ireland. And they did a good job of it too. While I can’t say either of these books were specifically sought out by me, I can say that I’m glad I read them.
Our local library here in Maine offers a rack of perpetually free, or nearly free, books from which to choose. They’re marked either “$1 Per Bag” or “Take as Many as You Can – Get These Books Out of Here.” If you wait long enough, the books in the $1 sale pile usually end up in the free pile. The risk is, someone may have purchased the one or two you had your eye on in the meantime. Not that $1 is too much to pay, but there’s an element of sport in the endeavor. Sometimes I feel as though I was raised on Canal Street in Manhattan because I oftentimes display a strong propensity for haggling with those who have no interest in haggling at all. Unfortunately for Maine and its Mainers, our locale isn’t much of a haggling place, yet here I am going guns blazing into every potential sale as a top notch negotiator. Ultimately, I, as the buyer, have fun and they, as the sellers, have fun as well. I’ll tell you this though – both of the books I mentioned above were obtained for free. If that tells you anything about me, it should tell you that I’ve got extraordinary literary scouting and negotiating prowess. Either that, or some clever librarians led me to believe I had won the bargain when they were simply clearing out the pile that was headed to the dumpster anyway. Whatever. A win is a win and I was able to read two very good novels because of the win.
The Tavern on Maple Street has a sweet storyline. I won’t get into it too much here because it’s been covered amply everywhere else. You can look it up if you’d like. What I will do, however, is perhaps invite you to consider what I found the story to be about (my perception) – and that’s this: how does a person grapple with losing a thing or place that’s become lovingly enmeshed with his or her daily life? In the book, a woman named Lily and her husband Jack inherit a tavern from Jack’s uncle. Lily decides the tavern is her forever home and she and Jack couple with it. The tavern embodies them and vice-versa. There’s a threat though and ultimately, Lily and Jack lose the tavern. You’d think that was the issue – losing the tavern, but you’d be wrong. The issue is, how does a person deal with loss? Or even more so, how does a person grapple with the changes that must ultimately occur when a loss is endured?
By the end of the story, the two main characters seem to settle into their new lives quite contently, but I’m suspicious of that contentedness. I believe the tavern life on Maple Street was a good one and until they find their proper footing once again, I don’t think their lives will be nearly the same as they once were. I suppose the story describes, in some ways, a tragedy, but that may be a stretch. If I were immersed in a composition and literature course, yes, I’d throw that curveball at the professor, but here on this blog, I’ll leave things right where they belong – a tale of dealing with something with which no one should ever be forced to deal.
