Love and Summer

by William Trevor

Book Overview

In spare, soulful prose, acclaimed Irish writer Trevor tells a haunting love story about the choices of the heart and the hardships--and comforts--of a bygone world.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670021237
• ISBN13: 9780670021239
• Release Date: September 2009
• Publisher: Viking Books
• Length: 211 Pages
• Weight: 0.81 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.2" x 8.5"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 12 and higher

Customer Reviews

Boring Read

This book has so much going on and nothing going on at the same time. It’s a short book and I had to force myself to finish it.

A brilliant and and poignant novel by a masterful wordsmith

It's a summer day in the small town of Rathmoye when Florian Kilderry first cycles into it and pauses to take some pictures of a funeral underway in the town's Catholic cemetary. Florian, an aimless young man planning to leave Ireland for good, is making a final stab at following in the artistic footsteps of his parents by trying his hand at photography and had come to Rathmoye in hopes of photographing the ruins of a burned-out cinema -- he is drawn to scenes of abandonment and disaster. Instead, Florian becomes a catalyst of sorts, transforming the lives of those attending the funeral and who notice his presence. He makes farmer's wife Ellie Dillahan wonder what else is possible beyond the bounds of her circumscribed world; forces Miss Connulty, daughter of the woman being buried, to think back over her own past, and jars the hapless and witless Orpen Wren into confusing Florian with figures from his past -- figures who are more real to him than anyone in his present -- and that confusion will lead to a decisive turning point for all of Trevor's characters. There's immense emotional drama in this novel, but it's implicit and understated. On the surface, life in Rathmoye continues at its usual pace as Miss Connulty serves guests at the family-owned bed and breakfast and Orpen Wren continues to sit and wait for trains that never arrive. But William Trevor is an artist, and he conveys the emotional changes indirectly, writing about the arrival of Florian's new passport in the mail or how Ellie changes the day of the week that she visits Rathmoye to deliver eggs and do her shopping. The prose is often beautiful and always vivid -- even had I not visited farm kitchens in rural Ireland, I would have been able to picture the Dillahans' home just through Trevor's prose. More skilful yet is his depiction of his characters and his ability to convey a sense of their personality and nature in only a few words. He writes of Orpen Wren, whose life revolves around the period he spent cataloging the library of a long-departed Anglo-Irish aristocratic family and who now carries documents he believes belong to the St. John family around with him to share with others and, hopefully, return to their rightful owners: "Carefully now, he tucked what had been returned to him into his clothes and continued on his way. Sometimes his name eluded him, but returned when it was used by someone on the streets or by the post-office clerks when he went to collect his pension." There isn't an ill-chosen word or an inappropriate plot twist or unconvincing character to be found throughout the pages of this slim novel. Trevor's writing reminded me of the drawings and sketches by great artists, who were able to capture in just a few simple lines, not only the nature of the person they are drawing, but their spirit as well. So vivid are those drawings that although they are centuries old, I always feel that if I looked away and suddenly glanced back at them, I would catch their su

An Exquisite Read

Many women know that love and summer can be a heart-breaking mix. In this superb novel by William Trevor, the reader is introduced to what could be an explosive and destructive love affair. Taking place in a small town in Ireland, Rathmoye, in the 1950's, there is not much news. The town is populated with farmers, shopkeepers and other small business owners who worry about their financial survival. The novel opens with a stranger taking photographs of the funeral of Mrs. Connulty, a prominent resident of the town, who disliked her own daughter and husband. The daughter, Ms. Connulty has a secret past of a lost love. Her bitterness transfers to Ellie Dillahan, a farmer's wife who falls in love with the photographer, Florian Kilderry. Based on this premise, Trevor writes a tale of suspicion, guilt and starting over with wondrous scenes of everyday life and those of unrequited love. With great subtlety, Trevor develops Ellie Dillahan, a foundling, who was outsourced from an orphanage to a widower's farm. She makes every effort to learn the skills required to help the farmer and he marries her after a short time. Despite her ample intentions and poignant undertaking of all the tasks given her, Trevor awakens her passion when she meets Florian. Florian's response to Ellie is more than a fleeting comparison to that of Ms. Connulty's secret history. Other important characters are the husband of Ellie, who lived with agony and tragedy, and a rather demented old man, Orpen Wren who plays a strong role at the outskirts of the plot. The dialogue is exceptional and Trevor's perspective provokes sympathies and nostalgia in the most jaded reader.

Fabergé Egg

Content is the only way to judge the quality of a book. Still it's interesting to note that William Trevor has been short-listed four times for Britain's most important literary prize, the Man Booker Award, and that as of this writing, "Love and Summer" has been long-listed for this year's award. Trevor is arguably one of the five best fiction writers in the English language. "Love and Summer" is a short book that looks at the growing relationship between a young married woman and a footloose young bachelor, and at the circle of people around them. As important as the individuals is the Irish village and countryside in which these folks live. The examination of the lives of the characters, major and minor, shows us that place is as much a matter of personalities as geography. Trevor's work operates on a small intimate scale spending lots of time on the simple details of ordinary lives. Rather than being boring, this approach illuminates the lives and personalities of the characters. For example, we learn a great deal about one of the main characters as he goes about the business of preparing to mend a fence. To further reveal the several people that Trevor focuses on, the author regularly shifts the point of view to reflect that of each of these individuals. This results in the reader having sympathy for each of them, and the lives they have fashioned and had fashioned for them. Because of that sympathy, we have no condemnation for the characters, even when they are petty or incredibly thoughtless, but rather feel filled with a sense of pathos for each of them, regardless of how successful their lives may seem. Moreover, it's not just the lives of the half dozen people that are the main characters that Trevor explores. In just a few words, Trevor reveals the lives and motivations of secondary characters. Books rich in texture and character developments can be boring to those active in the world of Twitter and action movies, and I expect that many readers will be have no interest in examining the lives of these people, especially if the result is a feeling of sadness. On the other hand, for those who are interested in the essential human condition, here is another small gem from a great master of the English language.

A MODERN MASTER

This is the thirty-second book from the prolific pen of William Trevor. His most recent novel,The Story of Lucy Gault, was short-listed for the Booker Prize, the United Kingdom's most prestigious literary award. Trevor has never -repeat, never--written anything bad, indeed, less than good, and his best novels and short stories are nothing short of marvelous. In Trevor's fictional work, detail exposes and builds the character of his protagonists. As you read him, you slide from imagining how his characters look to a deep empathy with how they feel, and where they stand on their journey through often bewildering, frequently disappointing lives. Joseph Paul Connulty was ...a lanky, weasel-faced man with grey hair brushed straight back and gleaming beneath a regular application of Brylcream. Spectacles dangled on a tape around his neck, falling onto the dark serge of his suit. Two ballpoint pens were clipped into his outside breast pocket. The emblem of the Pioneer movement was prominent on his left lapel. ... his hope had been to become a priest, but the vocation had slipped away from him, lost beneath the weight of his mother's doubt that he would make a success of the religious life. In the end her doubt became his own. "Lost beneath the weight of his mother's doubt...." That is amazing writing! Reading it, you know more about this poor sad man than if Trevor had started out telling you it directly. You know, too, something about the atmosphere in the little Irish town where he lives. It's priest-bound still. Children's aspirations are tied down by their mothers' judgments. Everyone settles for less than they had dreamed of. This fine novel is about a doomed love affair between a naïve, almost simple country housewife, who is married to a farmer much older than her whose life is blasted by a dark tragedy from the past, and a feckless artist-manque', a young photographer of no great talent or drive, who happens to cross her path one time on her once-a-week visit to town. Her fascination with him appears first as a welter of remembered details: "She kept seeing him, standing against packets of Bird's jelly in the Cash and Carry, tins of mustard, Saxa salt. As if they meant something, they were stuck in her mind, as if they were more than they could possibly be, and she wondered if they would ever be the same again, if what she'd bought herself would be, the Brown and Polson's cornflour, Rinso." In the end, the young man leaves. She makes a hard choice, but the right one, and life goes on. It was, truly, a summer love, nothing more. This is a compelling story, with characters you care about, a dramatic thrust to the narrative, and stunningly beautiful writing -it has it all. I've read a lot of Trevor's published fiction but nowhere near all of it, and I've never been disappointed.

William Trevor does it again - just wonderful

Brief summary, no spoilers: This beautiful little book takes place during one summer. The time is the mid 1950s. Ellie Dillahan is a young woman, married to a kindly farmer (referred to as "Dillahan" in the book) who is several years older. Ellie was a foundling, raised in the convent where she was left as an infant. She is sent directly from that convent to work for Dillahan, and after a couple of years they marry. We know that years earlier there was a terrible accident of some sort, and that Dillahan's wife and child were killed. Ellie is a comfort to him and he is a good husband to her. Into this picture comes Florian Kilderry, a young man raised affectionately by two bohemian parents. When he happens to be in Ellie's town taking pictures of a funeral, they meet, and Ellie falls in love. Ellie must decide between her husband and Florian - and Trevor shows us that the choice is anything but easy. There are other assorted wonderful characters. The book starts out with a funeral, and we become acquainted with the dead woman's twin daughter and son. Something terrible has happened to the daughter, and we know that she and the mother didn't get along. The daughter takes a special interest in Ellie and Florian. We also meet a deranged older man named Orpen, who becomes an important player in the story. This is a very short book, and you can probably read it in a few hours. But it packs a big punch. The language is just beautiful, and Trevor paints a wonderful picture of a small Irish town in the 1950s, and how our past has everything to do with the choices we make now. Recommended. William Trevor is one of my favorite writers, and this book demonstrates why.