A Bit on the Side [Import] [Paperback]

William Trevor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 13, 2005

William Trevor’s stunning new collection of stories displays this renowned craftsman at the peak of his powers. A middle-aged couple meet in a theatre bar for a squalid blind date; a disappointed priest fears an innocent young girl may run away from home; two self-certain sisters visit a newly widowed local woman. From these slender moments Trevor creates whole lives, conjuring up characters marked by bitterness and loss. William Trevor’s graceful prose is a wonder in itself, and as convincing when inhabiting the mind of a school lunchmaid, an adulterous Irish country librarian or a murderer on the London streets. And as is always the case with William Trevor, venom and tragedy are never far from the still surface of the stories.

These stories, many of which first appeared in The New Yorker, are small masterpieces of observation from one of the most highly acclaimed and beloved writers of the century.


From the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The protagonists of this haunting, emotionally bleak collection of stories—a new widow confessing to two surprised Legion of Mary sisters the secrets of her marriage to a hateful man in "Sitting with the Dead"; a woman stalked by her lonely, possibly violent ex-husband in "On the Streets"; an heiress who compulsively recounts her tragic life story to total strangers in "Solitude"; and a couple who exploit each other on a blind date in "An Evening Out"—are generally 50-ish, usually childless and almost always burdened by regret over relationships decayed or forgone. They live in the aftermath of irremediable mistakes, ruefully cognizant that hope and romance are often delusory covers for self-interest and survival. Even the young—an 18-year-old girl who weeps with regret over future betrayals, an Irish woman who calls off her wedding after realizing she loves the dream of America more than her intended—are melancholy and introspective. Trevor reveals his native Ireland as a world sandwiched between modernity and its accompanying wealth, secularism and vulgarity, and a past that was more soulful and pious but also more restrictive. The much-lauded Trevor (Felicia's Journey; The Story of Lucy Gault; etc.) explores the many sources and shadings of regret with his usual delicate but brilliant psychological nuance, brightened occasionally by nostalgia for the lost love that once impelled his characters forward.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Bookmarks Magazine

"If one were to pick a single word to characterize A Bit on the Side, it would be forlorn," writes Michael Dirda in the Washington Post. Here, as in his two dozen or so collections of short fiction and novels (see The Story of Lucy Gault, ****1/2 Jan/Feb 2003), Trevor introduces credible characters beset by hopelessness. But these Chekhovian stories, many previously published in The New Yorker, offer anything but hopeless reading. Trevor is a master of simple, quiet prose and psychological intuition, and, even if you don’t identify with each character’s plight, you’ll recognize familiar patterns of behavior. That critics laud the relative merits of each story attests to the great power of this collection as a whole. It only proves, as The New Yorker claims, that Trevor may be "the greatest living writer of short stories."

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Vintage Canada (September 13, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0676976700
• ISBN-13: 978-0676976700
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)

More About the Author

William Trevor was born in Mitchelstown, County Cork. He has written many novels, and has won many prizes including the Hawthornden Prize, the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Award, and the Whitbread Book of the Year Award. His most recent novel Love and Summer was longlisted for the Booker Prize. He is also a renowned short-story writer, and his two-volume Collected Stories was published by Viking Penguin in 2009. In 1999 William Trevor received the prestigious David Cohen Literature Prize in recognition of a lifetime's literary achievement, and in 2002 he was knighted for his services to literature. He now lives in Devon.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Other glimpses and other betrayals.", September 29, 2004

By 

G. Merritt (Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Bit on the Side: Stories (Hardcover)

Irish writer, William Trevor (1928- )(FELICIA'S JOURNEY; THE STORY OF LUCY GAULT), has been called the Chekhov of our time, and if Chekhov were alive today, it is easy to imagine that he would be writing short stories much like the twelve pieces contained here. I always open a new William Trevor book with a sense of excitement. Trevor's writing is brilliant and requires the reader's full attention; it is characterized by subtle nuances that offer keen insights into the heart of human nature. His characters are ordinary people whose personal struggles are depicted with a significance that is both poignant and universal. Reading Trevor requires patience, but readers can expect to emerge from a Trevor story with a broader understanding of what it means to be human.

Trevor's eleventh volume of short stories grapples with the uncomfortable truths of disillusioned relationships. In the first story, "Sitting with the Dead," a new widow laments her loss of a hateful husband to two rural Irish nuns ("professional" sitters for the dying). In "Solitude," an heiress tells the story of her parents' unstable marriage to strangers; "On the Streets" follows a woman being stalked by her lonely ex-husband; in "Rose Wept," an 18-year-old schoolgirl weeps with regret over "other betrayals" after gossiping about the cuckolded man who tutors her; and in the title story, a middle-aged accountant explains his reasons for ending an affair with a woman so that she won't be regarded as his "bit on the side. In this emotionally haunting collection of twelve stories, we witness Trevor at his best. His characters discover through the nostalgia of lost love that, when it comes to relationships, "things happen differently" than expected; "we're never in charge" (p. 151).

G. Merritt

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Achingly Sublime, November 14, 2004

By 

Kay Lexington (Phoenix, Arizona) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Bit on the Side: Stories (Hardcover)

Finding an author who labors for subtlety, one who more than appreciates it but rather writes for and of the reason of subtlety, for it alone, is awfully, awfully rare. Most authors don't seem to fully understand the magic of quiet intelligence, which allows a reader to slip inside a story and synthesize the events and details. As I have learned in school, it is subtlety that allows a reader to disengage from his or her life and suspend disbelief. I have never read any of William Trevor's work before, but I understand now why he is considered a master storyteller. A BIT ON THE SIDE is a remarkable collection indeed.

I recommend Paddock's A SECRET WORD, a brilliant novel-in-stories, for the same reasons.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tinkering with Secrets and Other Hidden Things, February 21, 2005

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Bit on the Side: Stories (Hardcover)

William Trevor guides us through streets and dank parlors and weakly lighted public places where his characters guard or choose to unravel those darker aspects of living he understands so well. In A BIT ON THE SIDE Trevor has written twelve short stories that could have been written by no one else. His prodigious gifts as a writer make him privy to the musings we all hold in private, knowing that voicing them would doubtless find misunderstanding glances in parting eyes of the people in retreat from our confessions.

Where does Trevor find these thoughts, much less these subtly drawn characters? In lonely corner tables in pubs, in the shy fears of wives of husbands departed in body or in spirit, in expectations of young Irish girls dreaming of better lives in America, or of poor pregnant mothers willing to offer their incipient child for adoption to spare their husband's jobless humiliation?

While William Trevor is a demanding author, one who graces his stories with subtle time lapses or changes that require the reader to be on the alert for the assured nuances of his craft, he is never less than amazing in his ability to paint portraits of people so odd in their ordinariness that ending a short story does not allow us to leave them alone. This is writing of the highest order - challenging, enriching, plangently longing, unforgettable. These are twelve treasures. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, February 2005