Word: trevor
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...YEARS since the publication of his first novel. The Old Boys, William Trevor has quietly produced a substantial body of fiction which has gathered a wide spectrum of admirers (especially in Britain) But Trevor's work has never received quite the same amount of literary attention that has been enjoyed by many lesser contemporary British writers. So it is a very good thing that Penguin has brought out an edition of his five collections of short stories to coincide with the publication of Trevor's ninth novel. Fools of Fortune...
...William Trevor ∙ The Name of the Rose...
...curse of Cassandra-to speak terrible truths but not to be believed-is a burden of Fools of Fortune. Trevor's ninth and most despairing novel covers half a century of Irish troubles. One of the characters even loses the gift of speech. She is the daughter of an Irish father and an English mother whose forced separation suggests the rift between their closely related countries. The child, Imelda, is even more symbolic of the price exacted by violence and hatred. Rendered mute and autistic by horror, she is a pathetic representative of the past, present and future. Says...
...power of these legends is inescapable in Trevor's novel. Michael Collins, the semimythic leader of the Sinn Fein, appears as an occasional guest at the Quinton house, which the Black and Tans burn in 1918 after massacring Willie's father and sisters. The boy grows up to nurse an alcoholic mother, love an English cousin, avenge his father's murder and flee Ire-and. Characteristically, Trevor's women remain home to bear fevered witness and carry the seeds of further disaster...
Fools of Fortune unfolds with the inevitability of Attic drama. The elegiac chapters and the grieving mood are expertly drawn, though dolefully unchanging. Similarly, the characters have perfect tragic pitch but limited range. They are, as Trevor obviously intended, ghostly creations speaking beyond pasion and hope. -By R.Z. Sheppard...