Love and Summer

William Trevor

Book cover for Love and Summer
Book cover for Love and Summer

Love and Summer

Love and Summer

William Trevor

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Description

Love and Summer - a remarkable, heart-rending novel by acclaimed writer William Trevor

'Lingers in the memory as a beautiful meditation on love, belonging and the impossibility of escape' Observer

'Unbearably moving' Spectator

It is summer and a stranger has come to quiet Rathmoye. He is noticed by Ellie, the young convent girl, who is married to Dillahan, a farmer still mourning his first wife. Over the long and warm days, Ellie and the stranger form an illicit attachment. And those in the town can only watch, holding their tongues, as passion, love and fate take their inevitable course.

'A portrait of a brackish rural backwater, complete with family tragedy, sexual scandal, a repressed spinster and a half-crazed ancient retainer . . . delicate, elegiac, written with all Trevor's trademark compassion and understanding' Daily Mail

'A series of wrenching human dramas, which Trevor depicts with kindness and beautiful delicacy' Sunday Telegraph

'Brilliant. Trevor is the ultimate Old Master' Evening Standard

'Beautiful. A flawless work of art' Independent on Sunday

Readers of The Story of Lucy Gault and Felicia's Journey will adore Love and Summer. It will also be cherished by readers of Colm Toibin and William Boyd.

William Trevor was born in Mitchelstown, County Cork. He has written eighteen novels and novellas, and hundreds of short stories, for which he has won a number of prizes including the Hawthornden Prize, the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Award, the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the David Cohen Literature Prize in recognition of a lifetime's literary achievement. In 2002 he was knighted for his services to literature. His books in Penguin are: After Rain; A Bit on the Side; Bodily Secrets; Cheating at Canasta; The Children of Dynmouth; The Collected Stories (Volumes One and Two); Death in Summer; Felicia's Journey; Fools of Fortune; The Hill Bachelors; Love and Summer; The Mark-2 Wife; Selected Stories; The Story of Lucy Gault and Two Lives.

About the Author

William Trevor was born in Mitchelstown, County Cork, and spent his childhood in provincial Ireland. He studied at Trinity College, Dublin. He is the author of twenty-nine books, including Felicia's Journey, which won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and was made into a motion picture, and The Story of Lucy Gault, which was shortlisted for both the Man Booker Prize and the Whitbread Fiction Prize. In 1996 he was the recipient of the Lannan Award for Fiction. In 2001, he won the Irish Times Literature Prize for fiction. Two of his books were chosen by The New York Times as best books of the year, and his short stories appeared regularly in The New Yorker. In 1997, he was named Honorary Commander of the British Empire.

Critical Reviews

"Trevor is at the top of his game, and his game is better than anyone else's." - The Boston Globe

"This new novel... is a delicate sort of drama ... but 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..."Love and Summer," the latest item from his venerable suitcase, is a thrilling work of art." - The New York Times Book Review

"A subtle, surprising, sometimes agonizing tale of young love and passion." - Julie Myerson

"Lingers in the memory as a beautiful meditation on love, belonging and the impossibility of escape" - Observer (London)

"Unbearably moving" - Spectator (London)

"A portrait of a brackish rural backwater, complete with family tragedy, sexual scandal, a repressed spinster and a half-crazed ancient retainer . . . delicate, elegiac, written with all Trevor's trademark compassion and understanding'" - Daily Mail (London)

"A series of wrenching human dramas, which Trevor depicts with kindness and beautiful delicacy" - Sunday Telegraph (London)

"Brilliant. Trevor is the ultimate Old Master'." - Evening Standard (London)

'"A flawless work of art." Independent on Sunday (London)

Publishing Information

Publisher: Penguin Books
Pub date: 2010-10-26
Length: 224 pages

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