Three Early Novels

Three Early Novels

The Old Boys, The Boarding-House, The Love Department

About the Book

William Trevor's Last Stories is forthcoming from Viking.

Three novels by “a master craftsman and a deep creative talent.”—The Times (London)

 
In his first novel, The Old Boys, a group of septuagenarians revive schoolboy conflicts in the election of the President of the Association. Now, however, the men possess a fiercer understanding of the things in life that matter—power, revenge, hatred, love, and the failure of love—and intrigue and deceit result.
 
In The Boarding House, William Wagner Bird takes in boarders whom society would never miss—if it ever noticed they were around. With these misfits, Bird creates a world where people are identified by their quirks rather than by their character. Then he makes a fatal mistake: He dies.
 
From the offices of The Love Department, Lady Dolores cures the heartaches of the lonely wives of Wimbledon with inimitable flourish and finesse. When the newest protégé, Edward Blakeston-Smith, is sent on a mission—to learn the secrets of seductive, scheming Septimus Tuam and stop him in his tracks—he learns about love and its friends and enemies.
 
In these early novels, one of the acclaimed masters of twentieth-century fiction created the dark landscape and compassionate characters that have become hallmarks of his extraordinary career.
 
“One of the very best writers of our era.”—The Washington Post Book World
 
“Mr. Trevor’s sheer intensity of entry into the lives of his people . . . proceeds to uncover new layers of yearning and pain, new angles of vision and credible thought.”—The New York Times Book Review
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About the Author

William Trevor
William Trevor was born in Mitchelstown, County Cork, and spent his childhood in provincial Ireland. He studied at Trinity College, Dublin. He has written many novels and short story collections and has won many prizes, including the Hawthornden Prize and the Whitbread Book of the Year Award. The Story of Lucy Gault was shortlisted for both the Man Booker Prize and the Whitbread Fiction Prize. In 2002 he was knighted for his services to literature. More by William Trevor
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