Comment

Jul 05, 2010BertBailey rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
William Trevor's a London-based Irish story-writer: mostly short stories, though he's written novels. He's as good a craftsman as Graham Greene, in capturing characters and their predicaments with just a few adroit brushstrokes, as well as the heart that informs his art. There's something mildly olden about his spare writing, but he seldom resorts to fancy language and never sounds out-of-date. Always sympathetic to his characters, even those (very much in the minority) who aren't civilized or urbane. In an interview he's said that happiness is boring; that's revealing about his work. This book collects all his published stories, plus four more, up to around 1990 -- since which he's written a few dozen more. Most will reward the attentive reader, and several are exemplary.