Synopsis
The inimitable William Trevor returns with a story of suspicion, guilt, forbidden love and the possibility of starting over.
It’s summer, and nothing much is happening in Rathmoye. So it doesn’t go unnoticed when a dark-haired stranger begins photographing the mourners at Mrs. Connulty’s funeral. Florian Kilderry couldn’t know that the Connultys were said to own half the town. But Miss Connulty resolves to keep an eye on Florian … and she becomes a witness to the ensuing events. In a characteristically masterful way, Trevor evokes the passions and frustrations in an Irish town during one long summer.
The New York Times - Thomas Mallon
In book after book, [Trevor] has somehow turned the nondescript and the habitual into the exceptionally vivid and particular…When he wishes, as in his 1994 novel, Felicia's Journey, he can depict the most gruesome violence, but always in the same even tones with which the hens get fed. This new novel, except for the accidents that took Mrs. Connulty's husband and Dillahan's first wife, is a delicate sort of dramathere is no corpse in the basement, no bomb lies hidden in any drawerbut even so, a reader will have his heart in his mouth for the last 50 pages. And when that heart settles back down, it will be broken and satisfied…a thrilling work of art.