William Trevor

Novelist

1928-05-24 – 2016-11-20

William Trevor was an Irish novelist and short story writer known for psychologically acute fiction. He wrote under the name William Trevor and received major literary honors for both novels and short stories.

Books by William Trevor

Felicias's Journey
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Love and summer
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The Collected Stories
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Quotes by William Trevor

Calamity shaped a life when, long ago, chance was so cruel.
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A child in London asked her father what autumn was, having heard it spoken of these days, and the father in explanation said it was a season, though not a major one. In cities, this father said, you did not feel autumn so much, not as you felt the heat of summer or the bite of winter air, or even the slush of spring. He said that, and then the next day sent for the child and said he had been talking nonsense. 'Autumn is on now,' he said. 'You can see it in the parks,' and he took his child for a nature walk.
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All this occupied his thoughts when he revisited the places of his war. Tramping over soil fed by the blood of men he had led and whose faces now stirred in his memory, it was his wife's response that came - as if in compensation for too little said before - when he wondered why his wandering had led him back to these old battlefields: in his sixty-ninth year he was establishing his survivor's status.
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People run away to be alone,' he said. Some people had to be alone.
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He should in humility have asked her why it was that he was naturally a cuckold, why two women of different temperaments and characters had been inspired to have lovers at his expense. He should be telling her, with the warmth of her body warming his, that his second wife had confessed to greater sexual pleasure when she remembered that she was deceiving him.
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Only the debris of wreckage, and not much of that, was left behind by the sharks who fed on tragedy: the fishermen, too, mourned the death of a living child.
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All this occupied his thoughts when he revisited the places of his war. Tramping over soil fed by the blood of men he had led and whose faces now stirred in his memory, it was his wife's response that came - as if in compensation for too little said before - when he wondered why his wandering had led him back to these old battlefields: in his sixty-ninth year he was establishing his survivor's status.
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People run away to be alone,' he said. Some people had to be alone.
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Only the debris of wreckage, and not much of that, was left behind by the sharks who fed on tragedy: the fishermen, too, mourned the death of a living child.
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Calamity shaped a life when, long ago, chance was so cruel.
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A child in London asked her father what autumn was, having heard it spoken of these days, and the father in explanation said it was a season, though not a major one. In cities, this father said, you did not feel autumn so much, not as you felt the heat of summer or the bite of winter air, or even the slush of spring. He said that, and then the next day sent for the child and said he had been talking nonsense. 'Autumn is on now,' he said. 'You can see it in the parks,' and he took his child for a nature walk.
Read quote
He should in humility have asked her why it was that he was naturally a cuckold, why two women of different temperaments and characters had been inspired to have lovers at his expense. He should be telling her, with the warmth of her body warming his, that his second wife had confessed to greater sexual pleasure when she remembered that she was deceiving him.
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He traveled in order to come home.
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He travelled in order to come home.
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