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A review by litdoes
Cheating at Canasta by William Trevor
4.0
Not one to waste words, William Trevor's sentences are so concise that they're not the most easy to read as so much information is packed in. His pithy prose demands full concentration from the reader; glean it over with a cursory eye and important nuances are lost. But when you do pay attention, huge rewards await you.
This collection of 12 tales draws together a myriad of characters:
a 73 year-old almost abandoned wife grapples with the omnipresence of her husband's lover, the not-so clandestine relationship kept oppressively alive by the lover's best friend in the most eerie vicarious fashion in 'Old Flame';
a man meets an old friend who was irreparably damaged by their complicit cruel act of childhood folly, and is loathe to face what his relatively unscathed self implies about his own humanity in 'Folie a Deux';
a pair of middle-aged siblings grapple with their bullying yet symbiotic relationship that is built largely on 'Faith', misplaced or otherwise;
a lonely teenage girl meets her online acquaintance,with near disastrous results, but she seems none the wiser from this episode.
Many other characters dot the rest of the stories, and their presence linger on way after Trevor writes the last word about them.
This collection of 12 tales draws together a myriad of characters:
a 73 year-old almost abandoned wife grapples with the omnipresence of her husband's lover, the not-so clandestine relationship kept oppressively alive by the lover's best friend in the most eerie vicarious fashion in 'Old Flame';
a man meets an old friend who was irreparably damaged by their complicit cruel act of childhood folly, and is loathe to face what his relatively unscathed self implies about his own humanity in 'Folie a Deux';
a pair of middle-aged siblings grapple with their bullying yet symbiotic relationship that is built largely on 'Faith', misplaced or otherwise;
a lonely teenage girl meets her online acquaintance,with near disastrous results, but she seems none the wiser from this episode.
Many other characters dot the rest of the stories, and their presence linger on way after Trevor writes the last word about them.