A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK
The beloved and acclaimed William Trevor's last ten stories
"The great Irish writer, who died in 2016 at the age of 88, captured turning points in individual lives with effective understatement. This seemingly quiet but ultimately volcanic collection is his final gift to us, and it is filled with action sprung from human feeling."
—The New York Times Book Review
With a career that spanned more than half a century, William Trevor is regarded as one of the best writers of short stories in the English language. Now, in Last Stories, the master storyteller delivers ten exquisitely rendered tales—nine of which have never been published in book form--that illuminate the human condition and will surely linger in the reader's mind long after closing the book. Subtle yet powerful, Trevor gives us insights into the lives of ordinary people. We encounter a tutor and his pupil, whose lives are thrown into turmoil when they meet again years later; a young girl who discovers the mother she believed dead is alive and well; and a piano-teacher who accepts her pupil's theft in exchange for his beautiful music. This final and special collection is a gift to lovers of literature and Trevor's many admirers, and affirms his place as one of the world's greatest storytellers.
Genre: Literary Fiction
The beloved and acclaimed William Trevor's last ten stories
"The great Irish writer, who died in 2016 at the age of 88, captured turning points in individual lives with effective understatement. This seemingly quiet but ultimately volcanic collection is his final gift to us, and it is filled with action sprung from human feeling."
—The New York Times Book Review
With a career that spanned more than half a century, William Trevor is regarded as one of the best writers of short stories in the English language. Now, in Last Stories, the master storyteller delivers ten exquisitely rendered tales—nine of which have never been published in book form--that illuminate the human condition and will surely linger in the reader's mind long after closing the book. Subtle yet powerful, Trevor gives us insights into the lives of ordinary people. We encounter a tutor and his pupil, whose lives are thrown into turmoil when they meet again years later; a young girl who discovers the mother she believed dead is alive and well; and a piano-teacher who accepts her pupil's theft in exchange for his beautiful music. This final and special collection is a gift to lovers of literature and Trevor's many admirers, and affirms his place as one of the world's greatest storytellers.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"He is one of the great short-story writers, at his best the equal of Chekhov." - John Banville
"He is, I think, sui generis, and in his 12 collections (and 13 novels, and two novellas: an exhibition of near-Updikean energy), he has created a version of the short story that almost ignores the form's hundred or so years of intricate evolution. These stories stay in the mind long after they're finished because they're so solid, so deliberately shaped and directed so surely toward their solemn, harsh conclusions." - William Boyd
"Writers often get asked which authors they return to again and again, their comfort books if you will, the ones that make them remember why fiction matters. William Trevor, I have answered on countless occasions. His stories. Any of them." - John Boyne
"The man - the work - was brilliant, elegant, surprising, reliable, precise, stark, often sad, sometimes funny, shocking and even frightening." - Roddy Doyle
"His stories are formally beautiful and, at the same time, interested in the smallness of human lives. He was, as a writer, watchful, unsentimental, alert to frailty and malice. A master craftsman." - Anne Enright
"An Irish writer, an international writer, a great writer. Put bluntly, he is revered by writers." - Jhumpa Lahiri
"Trevor is a master of both language and storytelling." - Hilary Mantel
"What a writer he was; he could flip over a sentence so gently, and showthe underbelly in a heartbeat. His work is always quietly compassionate." - Elizabeth Strout
"In the first few paragraphs of a story he could set an entire scene without seeming to, working on details, small moments, odd thoughts. As in the work of Alice Munro, there often seemed to be very little happening in his fiction, but then he was capable of offering the reader a sense of an immense drama." - Colm Tóibín
"A beautiful writer... I would not have become a writer at all had I not discovered his work." - Yiyun Li
"He is, I think, sui generis, and in his 12 collections (and 13 novels, and two novellas: an exhibition of near-Updikean energy), he has created a version of the short story that almost ignores the form's hundred or so years of intricate evolution. These stories stay in the mind long after they're finished because they're so solid, so deliberately shaped and directed so surely toward their solemn, harsh conclusions." - William Boyd
"Writers often get asked which authors they return to again and again, their comfort books if you will, the ones that make them remember why fiction matters. William Trevor, I have answered on countless occasions. His stories. Any of them." - John Boyne
"The man - the work - was brilliant, elegant, surprising, reliable, precise, stark, often sad, sometimes funny, shocking and even frightening." - Roddy Doyle
"His stories are formally beautiful and, at the same time, interested in the smallness of human lives. He was, as a writer, watchful, unsentimental, alert to frailty and malice. A master craftsman." - Anne Enright
"An Irish writer, an international writer, a great writer. Put bluntly, he is revered by writers." - Jhumpa Lahiri
"Trevor is a master of both language and storytelling." - Hilary Mantel
"What a writer he was; he could flip over a sentence so gently, and showthe underbelly in a heartbeat. His work is always quietly compassionate." - Elizabeth Strout
"In the first few paragraphs of a story he could set an entire scene without seeming to, working on details, small moments, odd thoughts. As in the work of Alice Munro, there often seemed to be very little happening in his fiction, but then he was capable of offering the reader a sense of an immense drama." - Colm Tóibín
"A beautiful writer... I would not have become a writer at all had I not discovered his work." - Yiyun Li
Visitors also looked at these books
Used availability for William Trevor's Last Stories