Customer Reviews

[Program for the first performance of]: The Old Boys

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This is a VERY funny book about old people written by a young man. Not for those who never take the rose-tinted spectacles off, perhaps; "mordant" is the adjective that might in fact best describe the youthful Trevor's sense of humor. Members of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals might also not greatly enjoy a chapter toward the end concerning the fate of a family cat. But in addition to making me virtually laugh out loud, it also reconciled me to growing old. In his own old age, William Trevor may be more humane and compassionate, and more deserving of veneration as a modern master of the short story, but this will continue to be the work of his that I re-read most often.

Norman Carlson

Victims of abuse at a boarding school remain dysfunctional many years later, and one takes a convoluted revenge on a tormentor.
I came to this because, although I'm a great admirer of Trevor I find something gloomy about his work and this one was recommended as funny. It is funny, but in the darkest of ways. I notice that others have used the words "gruesome" and "mordant" which are certainly appropriate. "Sick" would be another word. Children commit suicide, or are sexually molested or beaten. A cat's eye is torn out by a rat. A woman kills the cat to spite her husband.
Some of the humor comes from characters talking to each other with exaggerated formality. It's trick borrowed from Ivy Compton-Burnett and sometimes these dialogues and speeches go on too long and the joke palls. Otherwise it's impeccably writtem by a master of the English language.