The Story of Lucy Gault

by William Trevor

Book Overview

William Trevor has long been acknowledged as one of the most extraordinary writers of our time, with a particular insight into the workings of the human heart. In The Story of Lucy Gault, he has surpassed himself. The Gault family leads a life of privilege in early 1920s Ireland, but the threat of arson leads nine-year-old Lucy's parents to leave Ireland for England, her mother's home. Lucy cannot bear the thought of leaving Lahardane, their country...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670031542
• ISBN13: 9780670031542
• Release Date: September 2002
• Publisher: Viking Books
• Length: 228 Pages
• Weight: 0.94 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

LIVES OF QUIET DESPERATION...

This is a beautifully written book, rife with emotion and feeling. It is a book that will keep the reader riveted to its pages until the very last one is turned, so absorbing is the story. It is, as the title of the book says, the story of one Lucy Gault. Her story begins in Ireland in 1921, in the shadow of the Partition of Ireland. Feelings against the English and Protestants were running high, and many of the manorial estates were being targeted for destruction by the local Catholic peasantry in that time of unrest. The Gault family lived in a lovely ancestral home, Lahardane, tucked away in the remote Irish countryside. Captain Everard Gault, Lucy's father, though Irish, was Protestant and had served in the English Army. He was married to Heloise, an English woman. These facts had evidently not gone unnoticed by the local yokels. When the Gaults find that their home has been targeted for destruction and the threat of arson is all too real, the Gaults reluctantly decide to leave their beloved home in the care of their two faithful family retainers and relocate to England for safety's sake. This is a decision that leaves their nine year old daughter, Lucy, heartbroken. Lucy is loath to leave her beloved home with its resplendent land, rolling acres of lush greenery, as well as its lovely beach, and a beloved dog for which her feelings run deep. Lahardane is, indeed, a child's paradise. Just before they are due to leave, a distraught Lucy, desperate to change the way things are going, decides to run away in hopes of having her parents see things her way. Instead, what occurs is a tragedy of epic proportions, one that would have far reaching ramifications, changing the lives of many. It would certainly impact profoundly upon Lucy. This is truly a gloriously written, thematically complex book in which the author examines the way that love and calamity can shape destiny. Its complexity is belied by its simple, yet rich and lyrical, prose. The author lovingly tenders the delicately nuanced words that express the strong undercurrent of emotion that ripples beneath the surface of this haunting novel, drawing the reader into its heartbreaking story of love, forgiveness, and redemption. The fatalism of its characters aptly mirrors the historical fatalism of the Irish. This is a literary gem that the reader will, undoubtedly, read in one sitting, as I did, loath to break the careful cadence of the words that tell so compelling a story. Bravo!

A tale of love and forgiveness

William Trevor masterfully crafted a wonderful story about loss, love, guilt, and forgiveness, all packed into a short novella. The story centers around an English family who faced animosity while residing in their historical home in Ireland. After a freak accident involving a innocent shooting, Captain Gault decided to take his wife and daughter out of Ireland. The day before their departure, the daughter Lucy, not wanting to leave her home, ran away. When Lucy's torn clothes were found, it was believed that she has died. Heartbroken, Captain Gault and his wife set sail for Europe, deciding never to return or have any ties to their homeland.Lucy survived but was bundled wtih guilt of driving her parents to despair. For the remainder of her life, Lucy hopes for the return of her parents and seeks forgiveness from them. She believes a girl like her deserves no happiness. The most memorable scenes is the love story between Ralph, the neighbor's tutor, and Lucy. Lucy turned down proposal from the man she was madly in love with, because she has not yet been forgiven. Trevor wrote the most heart-wrenching prose, detailing how a man and a woman who professed their love for each other but are torn apart over a childhood folly.Will Captain Gault and his wife ever return to Ireland? How will they react if they see that their daughter was still alive? Will Lucy ever able to reunite with her parents and seek forgiveness? Does Ralph still love Lucy after so many years? Will he return to Lucy? Read this novel if you want answers to these questions.

When Less Is More

Reading the literature of Willaim Trevor is akin to listening to a string quartet rather than a symphony, to viewing a tiny Vermeer rather than massive Monet, to holding a seashell rather than viewing an aquarium. THE STORY OF LUCY GAULT is a life of enormous experience distilled by Trevor's deft hand into a mere 225 pages. The tale is an epic poem, a thoughtful elegy about love, forgiveness, sacrifice, and enduring kindness. The writing contains the truest scents of Irish language, the tale unfolds with the sweep of a Victorian novel, the emotions elicited are penetrating and piercing, and on many a page there simply cannot be a dry eye - so sensitive and delicate are the human feelings expressed.Willaim Trevor writes with the clarity and economy of a poet while painting his vivid vistas of Ireland, England, Italy, Switzerland........and the human heart. Here is a book whose story is so fine that it is only on completing the novel that the reader can reflect on what a treasureable journey has been provided. This story is a tragedy of sorts, but as the author writes "Love is greedy when it is starved...Love is beyond all reason when it is starved." The meaning of these lines is for each of us, as readers, to find. Take your time with this book: the rewards are immeasureable.

A life of futility

I am not a reader of novels, but there are certain authors whose works I never miss. One is William Trevor and the other V.S. Naipaul. Er..and oh, yes, Martin Amis.The atmosphere Trevor is able to conjure in his writing is genial. A sadness permeates this tale like no other book I have read. Of course, the plot is really quite far fetched, but I suppose in setting the period beginning in 1921, he relies on the dearth of modern communications to explain the inability to contact Lucy's parents. On the other hand, the device of Lucy losing her clothes when swimming and for them to be found by a dog just when the family prepares to depart for England leasding to a jumped conclusion needs no period; it is scarcely credible at any time! Plot, however, is not one of my interests, but I do take great pleasure in Trevor's wonderfully written. painstaking prose. It says much that I read the book in two sittings!

The Best of Trevor

As in other Trevor stories, "The Story of Lucy Gault" demonstrates the cost of political turmoil in human terms. It is the time of "The Troubles" in Ireland and the Gaults are Protestants in a mainly Catholic country. But to summarize Lucy's story merely will diminish your experience of this exquisitely told somber tale of a series of ill-fated actions: by reckless and impetuous youth and by the well-intentioned. William Trevor, a long-time resident of England but born, bred and forever an Irishman, has described himself as "a God-botherer." "Most of my fiction," he said, "seems to do that. I'm definitely on the side of Christians, but I don't mind where I go to church, whether it's a Catholic church or a Protestant church." This sort of ecumenism pays off here where he plumbs the depths of both Catholic and Protestant characters. "The Story of Lucy Gault", which made the 2002 Booker Prize shortlist, is probably Trevor's finest achievement.