The publication of a new book by William Trevor is a great literary event. Trevor’s last collection, A Bit on the Side, was named a New York Times Notable Book and hailed as one of the Best Books of the Year by papers from coast to coast, including The Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle. And his earlier collection, After Rain, published in 1996, was named one of the eight best books of the year by The New York Times.
Trevor’s precise and unflinching insights into the hearts and lives of ordinary people are evidenced once again in this stunning new collection. From a chance encounter between two childhood friends to the memories of a newly widowed man to a family grappling with the sale of their ancestral land, Trevor examines with grace and skill the tenuous bonds of our relationships, the strengths that hold us together, and the truths that threaten to separate us. Subtle yet powerful, his stories linger with the reader long after the words have been put away.
Trevor’s precise and unflinching insights into the hearts and lives of ordinary people are evidenced once again in this stunning new collection. From a chance encounter between two childhood friends to the memories of a newly widowed man to a family grappling with the sale of their ancestral land, Trevor examines with grace and skill the tenuous bonds of our relationships, the strengths that hold us together, and the truths that threaten to separate us. Subtle yet powerful, his stories linger with the reader long after the words have been put away.
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. The 12 stories of Trevor's latest collection blend an orchestra conductor's feel for subtlety with a monsignor's banishment of moral ambiguity. In The Dressmaker's Child, a 2006 O. Henry Award winner, the future seems predetermined for rural mechanic Cahal, until the preteen daughter of the village dressmaker runs at his car with a stone in her hand. Men of Ireland has the elderly Father Meade being visited by Donal Prunty, 52, a onetime altar boy gone derelict with the years. Father Meade, complicit (or perhaps not) in Prunty's undoing, learns that the erosion of memory extirpates nothing and only compounds one's regrets. The widower Mallory of the title story finds that mortality does not quite do away with the need for role playing and reverse strategies in marriage. And when Mollie of At Olivehill is at last goaded by her sons into selling her deceased husband's woodlands, the earthmovers appear with the alacrity of enemy tanks, altering her internal landscape as well. The book as a whole recalls Joyce's Dubliners in making melancholia a powerful narrative device. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Bookmarks Magazine
Critics enthusiastically greet any new collection by William Trevor. Cheating at Canasta is no exception, with many reviewers calling it one of the best of Trevor’s 12 short story collections. Two of the stories have already won the O. Henry Award, though the volume contains seven unpublished stories as well. New readers will find it a fitting introduction to his work, and longtime fans will find another bleak delight. Reviewers were particularly impressed that the 80-year-old Trevor remains both timeless and timely, importing his characteristic style into an Ireland that has greatly changed since he started writing. The only significant disagreement over Cheating at Canasta was which of its dozen stories is the best.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.
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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.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
There is no Greater Writer Today,
By
This review is from: Cheating at Canasta: Stories (Hardcover)
The last story in this wonderful collection has a French title, "Folie à Deux," but it is about an Irishman who happens to spend a few days in Paris in pursuit of his hobby, philately, stamp collection. The philatelist is also a bit of a philanderer, but that is no more than part of the backdrop. Our hero has a modest meal in a bistro, and perhaps more than a modest amount of alcohol. More backdrop. And then it happens. His childhood reappears. I would not dream of giving away just how this occurs, but I can say that the hour or so that I spent reading this marvelous story cast a spell over my day.And so it is with the rest of this new collection. Readers of the "New Yorker" will no doubt rediscover old friends among the other stories, but this will hardly diminish the intense enjoyment of rereading. This volume confirms it once again: there is no greater writer in our day than William Trevor.
20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Defining Moments,
By Wiltrud Goldschmidt (Pennsylvania, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cheating at Canasta: Stories (Hardcover)
In these haunting stories, seemingly ordinary situations erupt into defining moments that give new direction to a person's life. Pity, regret, deception are everyday occurrences in human relationships, but here they take on larger dimensions.With unobtrusive prose and subtle shadings, Trevor leads us into lives that have nothing exceptional about them, that might well be our own. The story does not end with the last line on the page; it prods our imagination to come up with different interpretations, different outcomes, new ways of understanding. I have been an admirer of Trevor's art for many years. While earlier collections had a certain timelessness about them, these new stories acknowledge the presence of cell phones and word processors, of chat rooms and latte shops. But the essential human dilemmas remain the same.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A master of the short story . . . once again,
By
This review is from: Cheating at Canasta: Stories (Hardcover)
I was convinced long ago that William Trevor is a master of the short story. I so enjoy luxuriating in his collections that I now intentionally pass by the occasional story in "The New Yorker" in favor of the delayed but ever-so-greater gratification of an entire volume of stories every three or four years. The latest collection of a dozen Trevor short stories is CHEATING AT CANASTA. After reading the first three stories, I feared that perhaps Trevor was slipping a tad. While quite accomplished technically, they did not touch my inner being. But the remaining stories put any such fears to rest. Once again, Trevor proves himself a master of the short story in English.And once again, I marvel over how Trevor seems to be able to write about anything, about anyone -- to weave a story out of the unlikeliest stray rags and scraps of yarn. Here, many of the characters are from the working class or lower rungs of the socio-economic ladder. Those who are not nonetheless are not among society's glamorous or smug. None of Trevor's characters (here or as far as I remember from his other works) would ever have expected their lives, public or private, to be worthy of the attention of a great writer or legions of sensitive readers. They are common, yet in Trevor's renderings they become uncommon. A theme shared by all these stories is deception, even between two seemingly very close people. Yet the tone rarely is one of anger. Instead, it is one of gentle ruefulness, tinged with melancholy, at times approaching a world-weariness. The narrative is sparse, almost minimalistic. Yet Trevor's voice is so assured, so authoritative, but without ever being overbearing. In truth, I can't imagine anyone who appreciates literate short stories not relishing the stories of William Trevor, including CHEATING AT CANASTA.
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First Sentence:
Cahal sprayed WD-40 on to the only bolt his spanner wouldn't shift. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Father Meade, Miss Davally, Minnie Fennelly, The Children, The Dressmaker's Child, Kitty Broderick, Perfect Relationship, Miss Mortimer, Old Flame, Donal Prunty, Fara Bridge, Sally Carbery, Monsieur Jothy, Sharon Ritchie, Men of Ireland, Maunder Street, Miss Brehany, Irish Times, Oscarey Church, Clement Gardens, Sunderland Avenue, Church of Ireland, Harry's Bar, Sister Teresa, Ana Woods Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Cahal sprayed WD-40 on to the only bolt his spanner wouldn't shift. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Father Meade, Miss Davally, Minnie Fennelly, The Children, The Dressmaker's Child, Kitty Broderick, Perfect Relationship, Miss Mortimer, Old Flame, Donal Prunty, Fara Bridge, Sally Carbery, Monsieur Jothy, Sharon Ritchie, Men of Ireland, Maunder Street, Miss Brehany, Irish Times, Oscarey Church, Clement Gardens, Sunderland Avenue, Church of Ireland, Harry's Bar, Sister Teresa, Ana Woods Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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