Product Description

William Trevor is one of the renowned figures in contemporary literature, described as ‘the greatest living writer of short stories in the English language’ by the New Yorker and acclaimed for his haunting and profound insights into the human heart. Here is the ultimate collection of his short fiction, with dozens of tales spanning his career and ranging from the moving to the macabre, the humorous to the haunting. From the penetrating ‘Memories of Youghal’ to the bittersweet ‘Bodily Secrets’ and the elegiac ‘Two More Gallants’, here are masterpieces of insight, depth, drama and humanity, acutely rendered by a modern master.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13998 in Books
• Published on: 1993-12-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 1280 pages

About the Author
William Trevor was born in 1928 at Mitchelstown, County Cork, spent his childhood in provincial Ireland, and now lives in Devon.

Customer Reviews

My desert island book
This is my favourite book ever, a collection from the pen of a complete master. Trevor is unmatched, in Europe at least, for his skill at drafting short stories of insight, depth, humour and drama. Not always enamoured with the human race, the odd overly-gloomy story can be overlooked in favour of the scores of powerful and brilliant ones. Perhaps the only complaint is that the book is just too big, making his great acheivements seem less rare than they are.

Sublime stuff
This is a truly wonderful book: dozens of short stories of consistently high quality by one of the really great figures in literature. Trevor uses words with great precision and economy to depict a whole world and portray a complex and ambivalent character within paragraphs. His two special tricks are the use of incredibly flat, deadpan prose to tell us about something really horrible or astonishingy bizarre; and the use of incredibly funny, almost surreal dialogue.

The earlier stories are sometimes blackly humorous and macabre. The latter ones have an autumnal and elegaic feel. It is hard to know which type to prefer, or to pick a favourite. A personal top six would be "Memories of Youghal", "An Evening with John Joe Dempsey", "Mrs Silly", "Bodily Secrets", "Two More Gallants" and "Coffee with Oliver". But another half dozen would do just as well. One feels there is a trick, to have produced so much with such excellence. But there is no trick: just constant excellence.

Sublime stuff
This is a truly wonderful book: dozens of short stories of consistently high quality by one of the really great figures in literature. Trevor uses words with great precision and economy to depict a whole world and portray a complex and ambivalent character within paragraphs. His two special tricks are the use of incredibly flat, deadpan prose to tell us about something really horrible or astonishingy bizarre; and the use of incredibly funny, almost surreal dialogue.

The earlier stories are sometimes blackly humorous and macabre. The latter ones have an autumnal and elegaic feel. It is hard to know which type to prefer, or to pick a favourite. A personal top six would be "Memories of Youghal", "An Evening with John Joe Dempsey", "Mrs Silly", "Bodily Secrets", "Two More Gallants" and "Coffee with Oliver". But another half dozen would do just as well. One feels there is a trick, to have produced so much with such excellence. But there is no trick: just constant excellence.