Last Stories

William Trevor Viking €14.99

William Trevor’s short fiction was the stuff of legend long before his death in 2016, and these final ten stories are like a masterclass delivered from beyond the grave. Whether describing family tensions in the kitchen of an Irish farmhouse or mysterious women loitering on the touchline at a school hockey match, Trevor’s eye for detail is as extraordinary as his compassion is all-encompassing. Standout stories include The Piano Teacher’s Pupil, featuring a musical prodigy who is also a sneak thief, and An Idyll In Winter, set on the Yorkshire moors, which says more wise things about the human heart in 26 pages than Emily Brontë managed in the whole of Wuthering Heights.

Max Davidson