MostlyFiction Book Reviews » William Trevor We Love to Read! Wed, 14 May 2014 13:06:32 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.3 PEN/O’HENRY PRIZE STORIES 2010 edited by Laura Furman /2010/penohenry-prize-stories-2010-edited-by-laura-furman/ /2010/penohenry-prize-stories-2010-edited-by-laura-furman/#comments Tue, 20 Apr 2010 04:13:23 +0000 /?p=8975 Book Quote:

“For the reader, the short story is nothing less than a brief and intense residence in another world.”

Book Review:

Review by Bonnie Brody (APR 19, 2010)

This year’s Pen/O’Henry Prize Stories 2010 offers an eclectic collection of wonderful writing. The series is edited by Laura Furman and this year’s judges are Junot Diaz, Paula Fox and Yiyun Li. The stories range from narratives that describe a richness of blessings to the barrenness of empty lives. Some stories offer exhilaration that turns to bleakness, while in others the turn of events is the reverse. The stories take place around the globe and throughout the United States. What they have in common is that for a short while the reader is immersed in the intimacy of a narrative that takes us into other lives and places.

The collection opens up with a story by one of my favorite writers, Annie Proulx. Entitled “Them Old Cowboy Songs,” this story begins in 1885 in the American west. Archie, aged 16, and Rose, aged 14, are in love and marry. All is bliss at first. Archie inherits a little bit of money from his surrogate mother and purchases some acreage. Archie and Rose both work hard. In time, Rose becomes pregnant and Archie goes off to seek paying work in another state as there are no jobs nearby. In this story, the cataclysmic impact of the elements are at war with the American dream of success. That one is able to survive at all is miraculous.

“The Headstrong Historian” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, takes us to Nigeria where we meet Ngwambe. She is a woman who believes in the culture of her tribe but is also strong enough to stand up against it if necessary. Ngwambe “is a strong-willed woman hemmed in by custom and circumstance, whose beloved son betrays her in an unimaginable way.”  This story speaks to the strength of inter-generational love and the power of a strong woman.

I found myself riveted by the initial barrenness and heartbreak of Brad Watson’s “Visitation.” It is the story of an absentee father with visitation rights to see his son every three weeks. Each visit is the same. As he drives up and down I-95 in Los Angeles, we can imagine the strangers passing in the night, many going nowhere or going somewhere they don’t want to be. Loomis, the dad, always takes his son to the same run-down hotel and has trouble communicating with his boy. Loomis is a man of despair, suffering from depression most of his life. He’s tried medication, counseling and insight but he’s basically a person of hopelessness. Through the intervention of a strange family of gypsies, Loomis and his son are brought closer to one another.

Yiyun Li’s favorite is William Trevor‘s story, “The Woman of the House.” This story takes place in Ireland and starts out with Martina driving a very old Dodge that may or may not get her to her destination. Martina is a woman of no means and even her looks, which she has marketed in the past, are going. She takes care of a crippled man who may be her cousin. This man drinks and torments her. All she has for herself is a small can of money that she’s acquired from cheating the man and selling herself. One day two outsiders, men from Eastern Europe, are hired to paint the house. They, too, have nothing. What the characters in this story share is ambiguity, limited means, and not much hope for change in the future.

“A Spoiled Man” by Daniyal Mueenuddin was selected by Junot Diaz as his favorite story in this book. It is easy to see why. The story is beautiful, powerful and does not have a spare word. It is the story of Rezak, a man who has a portable house that he carries with him from job to job. The house is large enough to sit in but too small to stand in. He ends up getting a job outside of Islamabad, taking care of an orchard for a Pakistani man and his American wife, Sonya. The couple spoil him by paying him more money than he’s ever made in his life. We watch as he is set up for failure and tragedy by his circumstances while there is nothing that he can do to prevent his downfall.

Ron Rash’s story, ‘”Into the Gorge,” is exciting and compelling. We view the way that people lived for generations in Appalachia and how this has all been changed by the Park Service. Not only have things changed, but much is now illegal and dangerous. One man tries to keep to his heritage and he runs into trouble with the law. No matter what he chooses to do, one man is too small to fight an army of bureaucrats and armed police.

No contemporary short story collection would be complete without at least one story by Alice Munro. Her story, “Some Women” is included here and it does not disappoint. It starts out with the line, “I am amazed sometimes to think how old I am,” and ends with the line, “I grew up, and old.”  The story is about a young girl who has a summer job taking care of a young man who has leukemia. An emotional power war ensues between women seeking his attentions and affections. The girl watches it happening and as an adult realizes all she has learned and observed about life in her many years on this planet.

Short stories are gifts. They give us the ability to be completely within the scope of their narrative for the whole time. We can immerse ourselves in the characters, the environment, and the story. Good short stories are like gems – – they are precious and rare. Laura Furman has done a great job mining the literary journals to select the stories in this collection. It is one of the best in this series that I have read in several years.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-3-5from 4 readers
PUBLISHER: Anchor; Original edition (April 20, 2010)
REVIEWER: Bonnie Brody
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? Not Yet
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Laura Furman
EXTRAS: Editor’s Notes and other information on this prize
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Another short story collection:The Story Behind the Story edited by Peter Turchi and Andrea Barrett

Previous Story Collections in this series:

]]> /2010/penohenry-prize-stories-2010-edited-by-laura-furman/feed/ 0 LOVE AND SUMMER by William Trevor /2009/love-and-summer-by-william-trevor/ /2009/love-and-summer-by-william-trevor/#comments Sat, 12 Sep 2009 22:44:20 +0000 /?p=4869 Book Quote:

“He paused at the windows in case a display had changed overnight. None had: draper’s dummies were as they had been since early spring, the spectacles on an optician’s cardboard faces had been the same for longer. Pond’s beauty aids were still reduced, travel bargains still offered, interest rates steady.”

Book Review:

Review by Guy Savage (SEP 12, 2009)

In William Trevor’s novel Love and Summer, past and present don’t collide but instead merge into a shimmering, elusive and painful present. The novel set in the 1950s explores the lives of interconnecting characters following the funeral of Mrs. Eileen Connulty in the Irish town of Rathmoye. Mrs. Connulty was a respectable pillar of the community, and the Connulty family is one of the most affluent in the area. Eileen Connulty was a widow and she ruled the family and the family businesses–a pub, a boarding house, a coal yard and a number of other properties–with a rod of iron. She leaves behind two middle-aged children, a daughter “she was glad to part from,” and a son: “her pet since he first lay in her arms as an infant.” Most of the townspeople mourn Mrs. Connulty’s passing:

“The funeral mass was on the morning for the following day, and when it was over Mrs Connulty’s mourners stood about outside the cemetery gates, declaring that she would never be forgotten in the town and beyond it. The women who had toiled beside her in the Church of the Most Holy Redeemer asserted that she had been an example to them all. They recalled how no task had been too menial for her to undertake, how hours spent polishing a surfeit of brass or scarping away old candle-grease had never been begrudged. The alter flowers had not once in sixty years gone in need of fresh water; the missionary leaflets were replaced when necessary. Small repairs had been effected on cassocks and surplices and robes. Washing the chancel had been a scared duty.”

Mrs Connulty’s death is not equally mourned by everyone. To her daughter, her mother’s passing gives some belated freedom and lifts the oppressive atmosphere in the Connulty home. To Miss Connulty, at least, there’s a sense of impending change.

On the day of the funeral, a young man named Florian Kilderry travels to Rathmoye to photograph the shell of the town’s burned-out cinema. While in Rathmoye he catches a glimpse of young married Ellie Dillahan, and over the course of the next few weeks, the two lonely young people strike up a relationship. No one seems to notice the budding relationship–except Miss Connulty, and watching Florian and Ellie fall in love stirs painful, long-buried memories for the middle-aged spinster.

For readers of William Trevor, this is familiar territory–the Irish Diaspora that still haunts a country devastated by poverty, relationships wrecked by piety, and a society ruled by religious dogma. In Love and Summer, Florian is the by-product of an Irish-Italian match made by feckless, hopelessly romantic parents. While Florian inherited the family home after the death of his parents, it’s a shambles and is rapidly disintegrating around his ears. With no prospects of employment, Florian has put the house up for sale and is gradually selling off the valuables and burning personal property. Florian destroys his past yet faces an uncertain future while many other characters in the novel, Miss Connulty for example, are prisoners to their pasts and their memories.

While Florian’s home is ravaged by neglect and decay, his surroundings are in contrast to the home of Ellie’s much older husband, Dillahan. Dillahan is a character who’s a prisoner of his past, but he survives and endures by absorbing himself into the minuscule repairs required around his farm. Consequently, his farm is in excellent condition but underneath the surface of this immaculate homestead, is the turmoil of Dillahan’s grief and guilt for past events.

These characters merge and then move on into their respective futures in this gentle tale of an Ireland that longs to change while still mired down by immovable religious opinion. Duty permeates everyone’s lives, relationships and marriages, and yet will duty be enough for Florian and Ellie? Or do they want something more from life?

Love and Summer revisits some of the themes of Trevor’s last novel, The Story of Lucy Gault, and while Love and Summer is not Trevor’s strongest novel, yet once again the author shows his skill in recreating a sense of timelessness and a present that is permeated with loss and contaminated with stagnation and slow decay.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-5from 46 readers
PUBLISHER: Viking Adult (September 17, 2009)
REVIEWER: Guy Savage
AMAZON PAGE: Love and Summer
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Wikipedia page on William Trevor
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: More William Trevor reviews:

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