Rating: 
Summary: Better than the movie
Review: " Felicia's Journey" is a departure for the Irish author in that the plot is driven by suspense more than character.Felicia's character is pretty much unformed. A small town motherless Irish girl, just out of school and newly unemployed, she's trapped in a round of housekeeping and caring for her hundred-year-old great-grandmother. The old lady is famous as the widow of a hero, killed in the "Troubles" a month after their wedding. An ordinary girl, with no particular talents or ambitions, Felicia's keenest awareness is of her lack of prospects. Not that she plans to do anything about it. But then a young man, older than herself and back on a visit from his job in England, flatters her with his ardent attentions. And leaves her pregnant, having "forgotten" to give her his address in the muddle of leavetaking. After several months without a word (but he doesn't have her address either), Felicia takes her great-grandmother's savings and runs off to England, looking for the factory where he told her he worked. The first night, she wakes, and thinks of returning. "If she goes back now she'll wake up again in that bedroom. There'll be another dawn breaking on the same despair, the weariness of getting up when the bell chimes six, another day beginning. The cramped stairs will again be cleaned on Tuesdays, the old woman's sheets cleaned at the weekend. If she goes back now her father's eyes will still accuse, her brothers will threaten revenge. There will be Connie Jo's regret that she married into a family anticipating a shameful birth. There will be interested glances, or hard looks, on the street....Only being together, only their love, can bring redemption: she knows that perfectly." Mr. Hilditch, a fat catering manager, is among those she asks for directions. He discerns her predicament immediately and is attracted to her friendless, anonymous condition. Surreptitiously he follows her, awaiting his chance to befriend her and add her to his "Memory Lane." The narrative moves between them. Hilditch plots, remembers happy times with previous girls he "helped," and finds Felicia's Johnny with ease, keeping the information to himself. He steals Felicia's money to hasten the day she will be utterly dependent upon his largesse. Felicia, innocent but wary, angers Hilditch by escaping him. She falls in with a religious cult but, when it's time to move on, discovers the disappearance of her money. Trevor underscores the terror of homelessness with subtle portraits of the people she meets, their offhand kindness a contrast to the circus of grubbiness, insanity and drug addiction. Sights and sounds loom larger than life. Hilditch becomes a reasonable alternative. Felicia is not a heroic character. Hilditch, pathetic, self-satisfied and crafty, with flashes of viciousness, is the more interesting. His greatest pleasure is sitting with Felicia in one fast-food restaurant after another, eating and imagining the other patrons noticing them, taking him for her lover. The tension builds, however, with a truly repellant scene at an abortion clinic and Felicia's subsequent disintegration. As always, Trevor's prose is both subtle and sharp, with a distinct eye for detail. And the tone is both compassionate and pathological; tension heightens as the characters' shared world grows smaller and darker. If there's any criticism it's the stereotypical psychological root of Hilditch's obsession, a monstrous mother added, it seems, as an afterthought. Nevertheless, a fine, dark novel from a thoughtful, eloquent writer.
Rating:
Summary: Better than the movie
Review: " Felicia's Journey" is a departure for the Irish author in that the plot is driven by suspense more than character. Felicia's character is pretty much unformed. A small town motherless Irish girl, just out of school and newly unemployed, she's trapped in a round of housekeeping and caring for her hundred-year-old great-grandmother. The old lady is famous as the widow of a hero, killed in the "Troubles" a month after their wedding. An ordinary girl, with no particular talents or ambitions, Felicia's keenest awareness is of her lack of prospects. Not that she plans to do anything about it. But then a young man, older than herself and back on a visit from his job in England, flatters her with his ardent attentions. And leaves her pregnant, having "forgotten" to give her his address in the muddle of leavetaking. After several months without a word (but he doesn't have her address either), Felicia takes her great-grandmother's savings and runs off to England, looking for the factory where he told her he worked. The first night, she wakes, and thinks of returning. "If she goes back now she'll wake up again in that bedroom. There'll be another dawn breaking on the same despair, the weariness of getting up when the bell chimes six, another day beginning. The cramped stairs will again be cleaned on Tuesdays, the old woman's sheets cleaned at the weekend. If she goes back now her father's eyes will still accuse, her brothers will threaten revenge. There will be Connie Jo's regret that she married into a family anticipating a shameful birth. There will be interested glances, or hard looks, on the street....Only being together, only their love, can bring redemption: she knows that perfectly." Mr. Hilditch, a fat catering manager, is among those she asks for directions. He discerns her predicament immediately and is attracted to her friendless, anonymous condition. Surreptitiously he follows her, awaiting his chance to befriend her and add her to his "Memory Lane." The narrative moves between them. Hilditch plots, remembers happy times with previous girls he "helped," and finds Felicia's Johnny with ease, keeping the information to himself. He steals Felicia's money to hasten the day she will be utterly dependent upon his largesse. Felicia, innocent but wary, angers Hilditch by escaping him. She falls in with a religious cult but, when it's time to move on, discovers the disappearance of her money. Trevor underscores the terror of homelessness with subtle portraits of the people she meets, their offhand kindness a contrast to the circus of grubbiness, insanity and drug addiction. Sights and sounds loom larger than life. Hilditch becomes a reasonable alternative. Felicia is not a heroic character. Hilditch, pathetic, self-satisfied and crafty, with flashes of viciousness, is the more interesting. His greatest pleasure is sitting with Felicia in one fast-food restaurant after another, eating and imagining the other patrons noticing them, taking him for her lover. The tension builds, however, with a truly repellant scene at an abortion clinic and Felicia's subsequent disintegration. As always, Trevor's prose is both subtle and sharp, with a distinct eye for detail. And the tone is both compassionate and pathological; tension heightens as the characters' shared world grows smaller and darker. If there's any criticism it's the stereotypical psychological root of Hilditch's obsession, a monstrous mother added, it seems, as an afterthought. Nevertheless, a fine, dark novel from a thoughtful, eloquent writer.
Rating: 
Summary: movie's better than the book
Review: book doesn't quite take off, unlike the movie itself, starring Bob Hoskins.Subject matter alone, however, makes it worth reading.
Rating: 
Summary: TREVOR, A COMMANDER OF LUMINOUS PROSE
Review: Here he is again, that commander of luminous prose William Trevor. With this, his 13th novel, the master has some surprises in store as his unparalleled accounting weaves a psychological thriller. Felicia, whose appearance is deemed "nun like" is the only daughter of an impoverished Irish gardener. She leaves the home where she cooks, cleans and tends to an elderly grandmother to find the boy she loves, Johnny. Knowing only that he works in a lawn mower factory somewhere in the English Midlands, she embarks on her fateful journey. Unable to locate the factory, let alone Johnny, she is befriended by Mr. Hilditch, a portly catering manager with a penchant for pop tunes from the 50s, a portrait gallery of strangers decorating his walls, and a black past. Mr. Hilditch follows her, assures her dependence upon him by stealing her money, and eventually takes her into his home. Trevor's brilliant narrative skills are showcased as he weaves the story with flashbacks, revelations of his characters' thoughts, and displays of their dreams. As always, he is articulate and compassionate, bringing his shuddery thriller to the zenith of a conclusion.
Rating:
Summary: TREVOR, A COMMANDER OF LUMINOUS PROSE
Review: Here he is again, that commander of luminous prose William Trevor. With this, his 13th novel, the master has some surprises in store as his unparalleled accounting weaves a psychological thriller. Felicia, whose appearance is deemed "nun like" is the only daughter of an impoverished Irish gardener. She leaves the home where she cooks, cleans and tends to an elderly grandmother to find the boy she loves, Johnny. Knowing only that he works in a lawn mower factory somewhere in the English Midlands, she embarks on her fateful journey. Unable to locate the factory, let alone Johnny, she is befriended by Mr. Hilditch, a portly catering manager with a penchant for pop tunes from the 50s, a portrait gallery of strangers decorating his walls, and a black past. Mr. Hilditch follows her, assures her dependence upon him by stealing her money, and eventually takes her into his home. Trevor's brilliant narrative skills are showcased as he weaves the story with flashbacks, revelations of his characters' thoughts, and displays of their dreams. As always, he is articulate and compassionate, bringing his shuddery thriller to the zenith of a conclusion.
Rating:
Summary: A Suspenseful Read
Review: In Felicia's Journey, William Trevor explores an unconventional relationship betwen a young pregnant Irish girl seeking her boyfriend and an established but lonesome man with peculiar and suspect behaviors. To Felicia, Mr. Hilditch becomes a caring fatherly figure who despite the uneasiness that he sometimes produces helps her throughout her search. To Mr. Hilditch, Felicia is a vehicle by which he can relate to an outside world that he has failed at on his own, and only by misdirecting her, can he keep her close enough to buffer his own insecurities. Though Felicia and Mr. Hilditch operate with extremely different motivations, Trevor examines their respective viewpoints based on the despair that fuels both of their troubles. He oscillates between both point of views, uncovering the different sides of fear in Felicia and Mr. Hilditch's relationship. At times, the jumping back and forth can be jarring and distracting, but often it reveals chilling insight into their behavior and creates an unrelenting suspense throughout the story. Trevor has invented a collision between two people from different walks of life, and it is curious that even though their meeting is accidental it may become the determining factor in each of their lives.
Rating:
Summary: The Dynamic Duo
Review: The frightening thing about this exquisite mystery by William Trevor isn't anything found in a typical detective or police mystery; there is no theft, no murder, no crime, at least not at first. The truly horrifying thing in the mystery is the unknown, for we don't know what is going to happen next. We wonder if a murder is to occur, or if we are about to discover some gut-wrenching fact about the main male character, Mr. Hilditch. The book makes you feel as if something is coming around every corner; so much reading time is spent waiting, anxiously, anticipating the next move. The two characters make quite a pair, one searching desperately for her lover, and essentially her family, and the other, searching for something to replace the family he no longer has. The truly strange thing about Mr. Hilditch is his normalcy. He seems a very nice, hard working, grandfather figure, until we learn of his crimes. Pity seems to be given to Felicia, even though I think she is undeserving of it. It was unintelligent of her to leave home alone, go to another country, and then associate with a strange man she knew nothing about. Although we are probably supposed to feel for this unsuspecting, sweet, innocent girl, I almost felt more sympathy for Mr. Hilditch and for the nightmare of a life he is living. All in all, an interesting mystery that kept me guessing at every turn, but certainly not one of my favorites.
Rating:
Summary: Felicia Falls For Serial Killer
Review: The two most thoroughly explored characters in this novel are Hilditch, a serial killer with certain resemblances to other fictional serial killers like Hannibal Lecter or John Beecham,of Caleb Carr's "The Alienist.," and Felicia, an innocent Irish girl for whom we come to feel increasingly sympathetic as she becomes increasingly poor.
Mild mannered , able to hold a job in the real world as a catering manager, and ostensibly very kind to strangers like Felicia, Hilditch has a "Memory Lane" that contains five previous young female victims he befriended and an incestuous relationship with his dead mother, as well as some unresolved feelings for his failed career in the military.
Hilditch has squinty eyes, eyeglasses, and is seriously overweight. He lives in an antiquated mansion where his delusions often overtake his rational mind.His taste in recorded music runs to the 1950's. His kinder side encourages Felicia to have an abortion as the most satisfactory way out of her pregnancy dilemma, a medical procedure that causes her no small amount of guilt and delusion. There are also two Christian proselytizers who accuse Felicia of robbery and a variety of homeless people that Felicia befriends in England, as well as Felicia's family and friends back home in Ireland. Felicia will never successfully complete her quest for Johnny, who left her pregnant back in Ireland. Felicia's stern father does not approve of Johnny and calls Felicia a "hooer." and Felicia is likewise rejected by Johnny's mother; she seeks out other help in Ireland to little avail, She is left in quite a destitute situation and guilt-ridden frame of mind, particularly since the money she stole from her great- grandmother is stolen back from her by Hilditch. She becomes an innocent heroine, a fallen angel. She cannot return to Ireland because she is seen as guilty of theft as well as of premarital sex. Her two older brothers beat up Johnny when he returns from England.
Rating:
Summary: A master of the unadorned style . . .
Review: There are only two real characters in this drama, narrated in Trevor's usual spare, sparse style that puts you into the heart of things. There's Felicia, a somewhat plain teenage girl from a depressed industrial town in the Irish Republic. She's the product of a convent school, but only on suffrance because her father tends the convent's gardens. She's inexperienced and naive and when Johnny Lysaght comes along and turns her head, her subsequent pregnancy is no surprise. And there's Mr. Hilditch, a fifty-something catering manager at a factory in the English Midlands, who lives by himself and fancies young girls, though he's very careful "not to shop near home," as he thinks of it. Felicia runs away from home in search of the absent Johnny, but she finds it's not easy even to survive, much less to locate an errant Irishman, in England. She's a bit suspicious of Hilditch when he tries to help her out, but he arranges things to reduce her options, and Felicia is suddenly in very great danger indeed. Trevor does a terrific job getting inside the head of a pleasant, mild-mannered psychopath, allowing the reader to gradually understand what makes him tick. He won the Whitbread Prize (again) for this novel and he deserved it.
Rating:
Summary: A subtly suspenseful and creepy novel
Review: William Trevor is a master storyteller -- he gives the reader just enough information to know where the story is (probably) going, but not so much that he holds the reader's hand throughout. FELICIA'S JOURNEY is filmic, Hitchcockian: Trevor gives direction to the characters, who take unexpected paths to unexpected ends. The darker sides of Felicia and Mr. Hilditch elude us. Trevor gives us only brief glimpses of them, like figures disappearing around corners when the lights of a car give them away. Mr. Hilditch is one of the most memorable characters I've encountered of late. Like Count Fosco in Wilkie Collins' THE WOMAN IN WHITE, Hilditch appears to be a benign giant, overweight and always eating pastries, a charming man. Inside, however, he's dark. His past haunts him and compels him to act out unspeakable evils so unspeakable that Trevor leaves it up to us to figure out what exactly he has done. Therein lies the suspense: what are this man's crimes, what is the runaway Felicia up against, where are the bodies, if any? We watch, helpless, as Felicia slowly enters Hilditch's trap, wondering how she could possibly escape. The suspense builds steadily throughout, especially as we learn more and more about Mr. Hilditch, as we begin to feel sorry for this tortured soul. FELICIA'S JOURNEY is a little slow, perhaps, but a worthwhile read nonetheless.
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