After Rain : Stories

Rating:
Summary: A Well Kept Secret
Review: After Rain is the only Trevor book I've read, but my first impression is of an unpretentious, master craftsman. He shows how to dazzle while keeping to simple language. The subjects for his stories are both, refreshingly new, and, just around the corner from our own lives. With it's tight construction and expert storytelling, this book goes fast, but at the end of each story, you feel like you're in possession of the most subtle and refined tapestry. What's better is that it always feels like a surprise, since you saw the story unfold so efforlessly and elegantly that the resulting richness and power is unexpected. Each of the stories are awesome in their own right, so it is difficult to have favorites.

Rating:
Summary: HUMAN NATURE INSIGHTFULLY PORTRAYED
Review: Following on the heels of his beguiling Felicia's Journey, the incomparable Irish storyteller, William Trevor, brings us a collection of 12 poignant tales that illuminate the human condition.

Acknowledged by many to be the master of his oeuvre, Trevor commands our attention with dignity and subtlety. Amazingly adept at shifting perspectives from male to female in varying locations and scenes, the author's championship form is evident in After Rain.

His initial offering, "The Piano Tuner's Wives" is an incisive rendering of a middle-aged second wife's jealousy. Haunted by the happiness her husband once shared with another, she seeks to establish her place in surprising ways.

A lifelong bond between two women is broken in "A Friendship" when the clever plotting of one backfires. Timothy, the gay protagonist, in "Timothy's Birthday" seems to seek to punish his parents for their perfect marriage. He refuses to visit them for his birthday celebration as he has always done. Instead, he sends a friend with an excuse. The disreputable Eddie delivers his hurtful message, then steals from the older couple.

Trevor's spare prose shimmers in this story's summary paragraph: "They didn't mention their son as they made their rounds of the garden that was now too much for them and was derelict in places. They didn't mention the jealousy their love of each other had bred in him, that had flourished into deviousness and cruelty. The pain the day had brought would not easily pass, both were aware of that. And yet it had to be, since it was part of what there was."

Another story takes place in the fields of Ireland today. Here, Trevor displays his gift for knowing the female heart as a young woman challenges the culture and mores bred into her parents' bones.

Trevor's work is meat compared to the broth of some of today's fiction. He continues to astound as he explores the complexities of family relationships with sympathetic candor. After Rain is one more triumph.

- Gail Cooke

Rating:
Summary: PERHAPS THE GREATEST SHORT STORY WRITER OF OUR TIME
Review: I keep reading book after book by Irish-born author William Trevor -- short stories and novels alike -- expecting that, sooner or later, I will be disappointed. I've decided that I'm not going to hold my breath...

Trevor's fiction is in a class of its own -- for most of what I've read by him, 5 stars do not do it justice. His style is illuminating, compelling and precise -- descriptions are all-encompassing and concise at the same time. His powers of observation and his ability to relate what he observes, transposed onto the lives of his characters, are immense -- and with all of this in play, there is a prevailing sense of calm in his work, a gentleness of vision that draws the reader into these stories, giving the worlds they illustrate a vital reality that lives and breathes within these pages.

Each of these stories is like a painting -- there is as palpable a sense of light in these incredible works as in any of the great works by Rembrandt. They reveal more with each reading, just as repeated looks at Rembrandt's paintings acquire greater and greater detail with each viewing, as we study them.

None of this is to imply that Trevor's stories are clinical and dull, merely objects for study. These works are infinitely entertaining, so finely crafted that the reader is pulled into the worlds they depict without realizing it. It is as if the characters are living around us, that we are at the center of Trevor's imagination along with them. He is a master at conveying their perception of their world, the struggle as they attempt to deal with events that surround them and shape their characters and lives.

The photo of Trevor on the rear of the book shows a man who appears to be unassuming and gently self-assured at the same time, a man who is not out to show off, one who has been moved to graciously share his gift with us. When the sad day comes that this fine writer is no longer with us, I feel sure that we will look back upon his works as some of the finest the 20th (and now the 21st) century was privileged to see.

Many of this fine author's works are available through amazon.com -- I encourage you to explore them. It will be a very rewarding journey.