Awards
Shortlisted for the 2002 Booker Prize
A New York Times Notable Book for 2002
Synopses & Reviews
From the award-winning author of
Felicia's Journey and
My House in Umbria, a new novel that "may well be his masterpiece" (
Philadelphia Inquirer).
The stunning new novel from highly acclaimed author William Trevor is a brilliant, subtle, and moving story of love, guilt, and forgiveness. The Gault family leads a life of privilege in early 1920s Ireland, but the threat of violence leads the parents of nine-year-old Lucy to decide to leave for England, her mother's home. Lucy cannot bear the thought of leaving Lahardane, their country house with its beautiful land and nearby beach, and a dog she has befriended. On the day before they are to leave, Lucy runs away, hoping to convince her parents to stay. Instead, she sets off a series of tragic misunderstandings that affect all of Lahardane's inhabitants for the rest of their lives.
Review
"A moving tale of history gone wrong and tragedy redeemed....Trevor's thirthieth and one of his best. Though faintly mannered and stiff in the telling, it's a beautiful story of history, grief, and forgiveness." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"This beautiful, haunting story of love and redemption rings with the resonance of a legend." Brad Hooper, Booklist
Review
"As the author delicately probes the nature of personal and political responsibility, the reader squirms with discomfort, longing for a scapegoat and yet aware of the implications of that longing." The New Yorker
Review
"Trevor is one of the finest prose stylists writing today....This novel...could well have been penned by the Russian master....Trevor's deeply poetic sense of the Irish character and countryside...[has] never been more eloquent. This is a book to be quietly cherished." Publishers Weekly
Review
"Trevor's smooth, spare prose captures the quirky workings of the heart, and compassion for the human condition mitigates the harsh blows that fate often deals his characters." Library Journal
Review
"Often spoken of in the same breath as...Chekov, Trevor shares [his] subtlety, and, like [him], is able to create distinct and mysterious worlds." National Post
Review
"Now, more than ever, when it so often appears that we are inundated with...lies told by our government, by corporate CEOs, by the popular media the meticulous fidelity to truth embodied in [this novel] seems especially valuable and refreshing." Francine Prose, Harper's Magazine
Review
"Enormities come without warning, never a decibel louder than anything else, from this writer who has long had more in common with Alfred Hitchcock than some of the chroniclers of Irish life with whom he is frequently grouped." Thomas Mallon, New York Times Book Review
Review
"The Story of Lucy Gault has many of Trevor's trademarks, a simply affecting and unadorned prose not least among them....You have to take Trevor's hand and allow him to lead you along, trusting that, by the end, you will be wiser. The likelihood is, you'll be sadder as well." Cressida Connolly, Literary Review
Review
"Exile, guilt, the peculiar (peculiarly Irish) fatalism that guilt engenders, and the ordinary antidotes for these griefs...are the subjects and themes of The Story of Lucy Gault, but they are hardly the sum of its effect. For in his stately depiction of a tragic tale that might, in other hands, seem overwrought, perhaps even overdetermined, Trevor has once again captured the terrible beauty of Ireland's fate, and the fate of us all at the mercy of history, circumstance, and the vicissitudes of time." Alice McDermott, Atlantic Monthly (read the entire Atlantic review)
Synopsis
William Trevor's Last Stories is forthcoming from Viking. The stunning new novel from highly acclaimed author William Trevor is a brilliant, subtle, and moving story of love, guilt, and forgiveness. The Gault family leads a life of privilege in early 1920s Ireland, but the threat of violence leads the parents of nine-year-old Lucy to decide to leave for England, her mother's home. Lucy cannot bear the thought of leaving Lahardane, their country house with its beautiful land and nearby beach, and a dog she has befriended. On the day before they are to leave, Lucy runs away, hoping to convince her parents to stay. Instead, she sets off a series of tragic misunderstandings that affect all of Lahardane's inhabitants for the rest of their lives.
Synopsis
The Story of Lucy Gault . . . once read, will never be forgotten.--The Washington Post Book World Trevor was our twentieth century Chekov.--Wall Street Journal
The stunning novel from highly acclaimed author William Trevor is a brilliant, subtle, and moving story of love, guilt, and forgiveness. The Gault family leads a life of privilege in early 1920s Ireland, but the threat of violence leads the parents of nine-year-old Lucy to decide to leave for England, her mother's home. Lucy cannot bear the thought of leaving Lahardane, their country house with its beautiful land and nearby beach, and a dog she has befriended. On the day before they are to leave, Lucy runs away, hoping to convince her parents to stay. Instead, she sets off a series of tragic misunderstandings that affect all of Lahardane's inhabitants for the rest of their lives.
Synopsis
From the award-winning author of Felicia's Journey and My House in Umbria, a new novel that "may well be his masterpiece" (Philadelphia Inquirer).
Synopsis
The stunning new novel from highly acclaimed author William Trevor is a brilliant, subtle, and moving story of love, guilt, and forgiveness. The Gault family leads a life of privilege in early 1920s Ireland, but the threat of violence leads the parents of nine-year-old Lucy to decide to leave for England, her mother's home. Lucy cannot bear the thought of leaving Lahardane, their country house with its beautiful land and nearby beach, and a dog she has befriended. On the day before they are to leave, Lucy runs away, hoping to convince her parents to stay. Instead, she sets off a series of tragic misunderstandings that affect all of Lahardane's inhabitants for the rest of their lives.
About the Author
William Trevor is the author of twenty-nine books, including Felicia’s Journey, which won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and was made into a motion picture. In 1996 he was the recipient of the Lannan Award for Fiction. In 2001, he won the Irish Times Literature Prize for fiction. Two of his books were chosen by The New York Times as best books of the year, and his short stories appear regularly in the New Yorker. In 1997, he was named Honorary Commander of the British Empire. He lives in Devon, England.