SOURCE: “Subversive Lessons in a Circle of Friends,” in Los Angeles Times, January 14, 1991, p. E3.

In the following positive review, See argues that Circle of Friends is a “subversive” and “inventive” novel.

Most novels—wittingly or not—present themselves as more than they are: A love story will play out against a war; a historical novel has “history” to jack it up into respectability.

But Circle of Friends presents itself as something less than it is: Just another tale of two girls growing up in the 1950s in a tiny Irish village, and coming of age during their first university year in Dublin. (Personally I'd run from that description, but I hope you don't.) Circle of Friends is about commerce and freedom and happiness and friendship and love, and most of all, about how things work. It's daring, subversive, remarkably inventive.

In the little town of Knockglen, we...