William Trevor

Raise your hand if you have never heard of him. That’s what I thought. Yet he should be a household name among the literati along with Hemingway and Faulkner. Trevor has been cited by the New Yorker magazine as the greatest writer of short stories in the English language, the equal of Chekhov.

Trevor died about eight years ago. He was born in Ireland but lived his writing life in the U.K. He was a frequent contributor to the New Yorker magazine yet never quite became celebrated in this country perhaps because he didn’t tour the U.S.; at least he never knocked on my door to autograph the twenty-one books of his on my shelf.

Two of Trevor’s many novels were made into movies. But I would say it is his twenty-two books of short fiction that will be long remembered. He started out as a sculptor and his stories have the feel of having been carved from a larger mass with only this shaped block of clay remaining. The narratives are of a piece, scrupulously chiseled yet effortlessly rendered. A back story is presumed but not stated. It is as if we have entered in the middle of a chronicle and what’s to come is only to be surmised. Demands are made upon the reader, an enriching journey.

His people range from the privileged to the impoverished. He seems to inhabit all of them including a homeless man I wouldn't want my sister to marry... though I've never had one. 

My friend Adele and I have started to read his stories aloud taking turns, over the phone. Great fun. We discover the characters as we go along. Trevor is a masterful noticer. He picks up on overlooked or casual details which move a person to new consciousness. His genius is the way the insight slides in without calling attention to itself. Sometimes just through his pitch perfect dialog or a layer revealed between the words.

Here is a poem I wrote after we read his short story Cheating At Canasta.

How he returned to Harry’s Bar as promised

remembering those final days

in her slow decline when,

with a sleight of hand, he cheated at Canasta  

to let her win, eliciting a faint smile

the way waiters changed the tablecloth

with a certain panache

to the delight of those at the next table.

Something overheard, or a glance

becoming an avalanche.

 

Trevor’s characters most often carry predicaments. They may be troubled or lonely and who isn’t. This is something I wrote after a Trevor story which seemed to merge with a documentary I was watching on Edward Hopper. The painter’s wife was his only model. She was an accomplished artist herself who subordinated her work to her husband’s domination.

The solitary woman in the automat

could be a wife betrayed

in a suffocated life

as someone crushing saltines

into a bowl of consommé.

Her lover was the catalyst

between the lines

who allowed her to see

beyond her marriage

even as Hopper’s wife

was slowly dying under his paint.