A Year with William Trevor wrap-up: What I learned from reading 12 books in 12 months

A Year With William Trevor | #WilliamTrevor2023

Last year I read 12 books — one per month — by the late Irish writer William Trevor (1928-2016) as part of a project I co-hosted with Cathy from 746 Books.

Immersing myself in his work like this, a kind of extended binge read if you will, was a fascinating experience. I learned so much about his writing and yet I still feel I know so little about him as a man. Or do I?

Award-winning writer

Most people associate Trevor with the Booker Prize, for which he received five nominations over the years, but he never took out the top gong. He had better luck with the Whitbread Prize (now known as the Costa Book Awards), winning it three times (for The Children of Dynmouth in 1976, Fools of Fortune in 1983, and Felicia’s Journey in 1994) and the Hawthornden Prize for Literature, which he won once — for his 1965 novel The Old Boys.

He had an honorary CBE and a knighthood too.

But that’s not why I wanted to devote a year to reading his work.

Trevor has an esteemed reputation as a fine chronicler of human life in all its many facets and was regarded as one of the greatest short story writers in the English language. But he didn’t just write short stories. He wrote novels, novellas and plays, too.

Since beginning this blog almost two decades ago, I have read and reviewed a few of his novels and found them heartbreaking (The Story of Lucy Gault), slightly disturbing (Felicia’s Journey and Death in Summer) or gentle depictions of rural life (Love and Summer and Nights at the Alexandra).

It wasn’t until I’d read three of his early novels — The Old Boys (1964), The Boarding House (1965) and The Love Department (1966) — published in one volume, that I understood there was more to Trevor than the melancholy tales I had previously associated him with.

Those early novels were satires, up roaringly funny in places. All were set in London, rather than his native Ireland, and each felt like they might have fallen out of the Ealing Comedy playbook [1].

I was happily surprised by this discovery and wondered how he had gone from writing black comedies to writing sombre tales about outsiders and outcasts. Where did this change in direction occur? What else did I not know about his writing?

19 things I discovered

The only way to find out? To read all his work, preferably in chronological order so I could spot the deviations (or the commonalities) in tone, style and characterisation. Here’s what I discovered:

• His early career novels (up until 1966) are black comedies set in London and are wickedly funny
• His work takes on a darker edge, albeit with an eye on the funny side of life, with the publication of his fifth novel, Mrs Eckdorf in O’Neill’s Hotel (1969), a style that he maintained for around five novels
• The publication of Fools of Fortune (1983) represents a major turning point in his career — it was the first book to be set in his native County Cork and the first to use a first-person narrator
• From then on, his work shifts between English settings and Irish settings, but with a preference for rural Ireland
• He loves an ensemble cast and rather than tell his stories through a single narrator he often uses multiple voices, switching the focus from character to character, all of whom have rich backstories
• Pretty much every book features a character who is deaf or someone who has a learning difficulty or a mental health problem
• The orphan count across his backlist is very high!
• He is quite partial to children who have had terrible childhood experiences but somehow survived
• There’s always a male character who is a cad or sexual deviant, while the women characters are often “troubled” or mentally disturbed in some way
• Characters who are obsessed with something such as an idea that they can’t let go of or a dream they want to achieve feature pretty highly
• He likes to write about middle-aged women, love affairs and the corrupting effect of religion
• He’s not afraid to cover taboo subjects such as abortion, alcoholism, prostitution and mental health disorders
• He fills his books with outsiders and outcasts, including drunks and thieves, and gives voice to people we would normally never hear from
• His books set in England always have a reference to Ireland, usually in the form of an Irish character
• His books set in Ireland often include references to the intricate dynamics between Protestants and Catholics, but this is rarely the main focus of his stories
• He tends to write in the third person
• His storytelling is always empathetic and compassionate; it is never judgemental
• Not everything is spelt out; he regards his readers as intelligent people who can figure things out for themselves and if that gives rise to some ambiguity then so be it
• There’s a timeless quality to his writing, but most of his work is set in the 20th century before the advent of mobile phones, the internet and social media

Immersing myself in William Trevor’s world taught me a lot about how he viewed the world himself. He championed the underdog and was adept at writing about people of all ages and backgrounds. His compassionate eye highlighted the quiet struggles and sorrows of ordinary people with empathy and a keen understanding of the human condition.

He has a soft spot for loners and those seeking love or human connection in any form they can.

If you have never read him before and are not sure where to start, read Two Lives, which is two novellas — Reading Turgenev and My House in Umbria — brought together in one volume; the first novella is typically melancholic and heartbreaking, the second is a black comedy. From that, you should be able to figure out which style you prefer and then you can work out whether to explore his early career novels or his later work.

But of course, you might be like me, and appreciate almost everything he’s ever written!

My reviews

Here are the 12 books that I reviewed this year, a mix of novels, novellas and short story collections.

The only book I wasn’t convinced by was Elizabeth Alone, which felt like it was trying to do too much and didn’t feel like a cohesive story, more a collection of shorter tales, but on the whole, I enjoyed every single one of these amazing books.

If you wish to read my reviews, simply click on the covers below.

Thank you and a reminder about this year’s plans

Undertaking A Year with William Trevor was definitely a rewarding experience.

Special thanks to Cathy for keeping me company (you can read all her reviews here) and to those blog readers who (1) tolerated the avalanche of William Trevor posts here (2) responded to my reviews or (3) joined in and read and reviewed a Trevor book or two along the way. The support has been amazing and much appreciated.

I’m now greatly looking forward to repeating this exercise in 2024 — but with a different writer in focus: the great John Banville. This will be another project co-hosted with Cathy. You can read more about it on my dedicated A Year with John Banville page — expect the first review later this month.

[1] Ealing comedies are a series of British films made in the late 1940s to early 1950s that were known for their dry wit, social commentary and ensemble casts. They are wonderful fun but often have a dark edge to them.