Rating: 
Summary: When Less Is More
Review: Reading the literature of Willaim Trevor is akin to listening to a string quartet rather than a symphony, to viewing a tiny Vermeer rather than massive Monet, to holding a seashell rather than viewing an aquarium. THE STORY OF LUCY GAULT is a life of enormous experience distilled by Trevor's deft hand into a mere 225 pages. The tale is an epic poem, a thoughtful elegy about love, forgiveness, sacrifice, and enduring kindness. The writing contains the truest scents of Irish language, the tale unfolds with the sweep of a Victorian novel, the emotions elicited are penetrating and piercing, and on many a page there simply cannot be a dry eye - so sensitive and delicate are the human feelings expressed.Willaim Trevor writes with the clarity and economy of a poet while painting his vivid vistas of Ireland, England, Italy, Switzerland........and the human heart. Here is a book whose story is so fine that it is only on completing the novel that the reader can reflect on what a treasureable journey has been provided. This story is a tragedy of sorts, but as the author writes "Love is greedy when it is starved...Love is beyond all reason when it is starved." The meaning of these lines is for each of us, as readers, to find. Take your time with this book: the rewards are immeasureable.
Rating:
Summary: Heart-breaking search for forgiveness
Review: The Story of Lucy Gault, set in Ireland, starts with a warning gunshot fired by Captain Gault to scare away potential arsonists. Gault inadvertently hurts a boy's shoulder in the process. He is deeply remorseful and tries to make peace with the boy's family, with little success. Gault and his strong wife Heloise decide they must leave Lahardane, their wonderful home, in order to avoid future trouble. Daughter Lucy will not hear of it. She loves Lahardane, she loves the water, the sand, the abandoned dog by the strand. To convince her parents to stay, Lucy decides to run away from home. Following a series of tragic misunderstandings, Lucy is presumed dead. Her parents, no longer having an anchor that ties them to Lahardane, finally leave. In doing so, they inadvertently abandon Lucy and transfer her care to the house-servants Bridget and Henry. As the years pass, Lucy continues to exist and float along waiting forever, for forgiveness that takes its sweet time coming. Trevor's novel deals with fleeing both in the figurative and literal sense. "It is our tragedy in Ireland that for one reason or another we are repeatedly obliged to flee from what we hold dear." says Trevor. The Gaults flee from memories, they travel all over Europe and "set out upon a pilgrimage, absolution sought for sins that varied in the telling." Lucy at the same time is tormented by one question. "How could I have run away from them?" she asks. The anguish that tears her apart makes her run from life, even reject love when she finds it. William Trevor is a masterful writer of short stories-many of his have been published in the New Yorker. In this novel, he expertly paints a strong gripping story with just a few intense scenes. Almost every sentence in here does the job of twenty. In the end, when melodrama could easily have taken over, the silence between a now grown Lucy and her returned father is heartbreaking and real. "Say something", you want to yell at them as you drink in the anguish. The Story of Lucy Gault is an understated marvel. In the end, Trevor writes: "Calamity shaped a life when, long ago, chance was so cruel. Calamity shapes the story that is told, and is the reason for its being." Calamity might have been the trigger for this story, but oh, what a story, and oh what a telling!
Rating:
Summary: love lost: forgiveness found
Review: There is no need for me to rewrite the plot of this book as many reviewers have done so before me.And done it well. In addition, the plot, when sketched out, seems implausible at best, laughable at worst. What makes this book a "must read" is the powerful spare language Trevor uses to tell this sad tale. In lesser hands, this book would have been twice as long and said half as much. In Trevor's capable hands, this book is at times, almost too painful to read.
The Story of Lucy Gualt tells of a childhood mistake, a willful deed, which has horrifying consequences for so many people.
It's the story of love, of loss, of forgiveness and ultimately, of redemption. For our sins against others, we may be forgiven by another's generosity of spirit. Forgiving ourselves is something else altogether.
Trevor asks the reader to consider the nature of forgiveness and redemption. He also challenges us to ask ourselves if Lucy's life is wasted or if a meaningful life for anyone can be shaped from endless days filled with waiting and longing.
If you accept the premise that life itself is a gift, what then is ones responsibility to living it fully?
Milton wrote in his poem "On His Blindness" "They also serve who only stand and wait" Is this true for this novel?
If you enjoyed Atonement, you must read this. And vice versa.
Rating: 
Summary: Fades away
Review: This book starts with a very interesting premise that could deliver an emotional and thought-provoking ride regarding quick decisions in life and their consequences. But it fails terribly as the plots narrows down to the life of self-pity that Lucy forces on herself because of her guilt. At some point, it turns from noble to ridiculous. It drags on and becomes terribly boring. I had a hard time reading through sections of the book. The characters and events seem to float on their own world and whenever they connect, the result is very superficial. This book lacks the depth of narrative and detail needed for the reader to fully relate to Lucy and sympathize with her guilt. It was very dissappointing.
Rating: 
Summary: Master of Melancholy
Review: This novel is worth reading for its stylistic merits and subject matter. It is a simple tale of misfortune and misadventure transformed into legend because of the epic calamity that Lucy's transgression brings. I don't wish to go into the plot as it has been detailed very well by other reviewers. There are two extremes that I have noticed in the reviews for The Story of Lucy Gault. There are those who believe that Trevor has written a symphony about grief and forgiveness and those who have hollered "what's the point?" and bemoan the ridiculous remorse that Lucy clings to for the rest of her life. I believe that there is merit to both these points of view and the difference would be to ask yourself what kind of reader you are. Trevor can be appreciated for his sparseness and subtle style. This novel reads very much like a melancholy ballad. The beauty of Lahardane, the deep love that the Irish possess for their home and township, is deftly portrayed by Trevor with a few words. Moreover, this story of remorse and atonement is never heavy-handed. It is an intelligent and poetic meditation about a life that is resurrected simply to be placed in limbo until some form of forgiveness is given. I admire Trevor's style because he is able to contain a tale with such complex thematic elements and profundity within 200 odd pages. On the other hand, some readers will come away from this novel unconvinced by the premise of Lucy's misfortune, nor the choices she makes in order to atone for her 'sins'. I think in this sense, we commit anachronism - in a time like our's where individual choices and mistakes are easily corrected or forgiveness of oneself can be achieved through a therapist, it is hard to understand why Lucy clings to the belief that her life cannot resume without her parents' forgiveness. In this sense, Trevor seems to be overly dramatic, portraying an Ireland whose melancholy and pessimism creates its own tragedies. However, Lucy does not live in a time and place where forgiveness of oneself can be easily achieved and this story stands quite well within its particular era. I believe that Trevor is an incredibly gifted writer whose subtle prose and ability to convey depth of emotions with so few words is a refreshing change from more verbose writers. His Ireland is lyrical and tragic, and his story of how tragedy begets greater tragedy in the individual who commits a woeful act is conveyed with great skill and execution. While it is not among the most memorable novels, it is certainly one of the most well-written.
Rating: 
Summary: ¿Calamity shapes the story...and is its reason for being."
Review: This old-fashioned saga of eighty years in a family's life, from the Partition of Ireland in 1921 to the present, differs from other such novels in that it is very short, a mere 228 pages, packed with intimate character portrayals and enough heartache to fill a book three times its size. Like many other authors who excel at short story writing, Trevor compresses images and scenes, and his well honed ability to make a few words do the work of dozens allows him to create a book which is simultaneously intensely personal and broad in its time horizon. The Everard Gault family, Protestant estate owners in the south of Ireland, does not want to join the exodus of other Protestant families leaving Ireland for England in 1921. When three young men sneak up to their house with gasoline one night, intent on burning them out, Capt. Gault, in an action reminiscent of the precipitating event of a Greek tragedy, fires a warning shot, accidentally wounding one of the young men and setting in motion a series of actions and reactions which ultimately affect the lives of nearly a dozen other people over the course of eighty years. His nine-year-old daughter Lucy runs away into the hills. Gault and his wife, finding evidence which "proves" that she has drowned instead, leave for Europe in despair. A seriously injured and almost starving Lucy is eventually found, but her parents are not, leaving her to be brought up in the abandoned house by two loving servants. A child who blames herself entirely for her heartsick parents' departure, Lucy is unable to accept love or forgiveness until she can atone for her childish mistake of running away. In the hands of a lesser writer, the calamities, the "almost contacts" between Lucy and her parents, the coincidences, and the unremitting self-sacrifice of Lucy, even in the face of true love, might lead one to consider this just another melodrama. In the hands of Trevor, however, the narrative is developed so carefully, the mood is sustained so effectively, and the details are so well selected that the reader is quickly caught up in the story and its suspense, and willingly follows along, even when the developing action seems to defy common sense. Trevor makes the "willing suspension of disbelief" a real pleasure here.
Rating: 
Summary: If you appreciate dullness, this book will fascinate you
Review: This was the first book by William Trevor that I've read. I do not anticipate reading anything else that he publishes. The plot has been stated numerous times, and is really not worth repeating here. The first 30 pages of this book are interesting and somewhat engaging. After that, it is simply a chore to read. It is the sort of book that one keeps reading because they expect something will happen. Alas, nothing does, and when the book is closed the story is soon forgotten. If one believes their life is totally useless, uneventful, and without meaning, then read this book as it is bound to ease your depression. Surely no one has ever had a life as truly boring and dismal as Lucy Gault's. Quite frankly, I'm still perplexed as to exactly how this book was ever published.
Rating:
Summary: Self-Sacrificing Heroine Laments Childish Behavior
Review: Very enjoyable historical novel about Capt. Everard Gault, a World War I veteran, and his English wife Heloise who are driven from their family estate Lahardane by marauding Catholics to wander Europe until after World War II during the Irish times of Troubles around 1921, but daughter Lucy is left behind,believed to be drowned. Actually she is just hiding out, hoping she can persuade them not to leave. There are several sympathetic scenes of the elder Gaults in exile in Italy and Switzerland, where Heloise dies, but the main focus is on Lucy, who is perhaps a less interesting character, and the people and events (servants, solicitor, curate,a boyfriend) that shape her rather lonely life. She chooses to wear her mother's old dresses (while her mother embraces the finest Italian fashions) and she rarely ventures far from the family estate at Lahardane. She develops a loving relationship with Ralph which goes nowhere because of her guilt complex. The family estate has lost much of its value. She is consumed with guilt over her childish behavior. In later life, still unmarried, she chooses to visit regularly the man now confined to an asylum who in his youth tried to torch her parents' estate. She brings him her embroideries and plays dice with him in an attempt to erase an old wound. In fact, Lucy spends most of her life attempting to erase old wounds. Basically a well-written novel deserving of its praise.
Rating:
Summary: A Series of Unfortunate Events...
Review: While my inability to enjoy this book wouldn't prevent me from picking up something else by William Trevor, I have to say that for a relatively short work, this novel was a bit of a plod. Lucy's disappearance and supposed death sets in motion a set of tragic misunderstandings, certainly; but Trevor has his characters (Lucy's parents, the soldier Horahan) behave in ways that are so illogically sudden and incontrovertible as a result, that it is hard to believe in their inevitability. For instance, parents of children who disappear typically take years to accept that they have died. In this case, the trauma Lucy inflicts on her parents has them believe in, and accept her death, a scant few weeks after her disappearance. And then there is the lifetime of guilt Lucy suffers for her misdeed, and the denial of love and happiness she inflicts on herself as punishment. Clearly, in Trevor's view, love does not conquer all, and that's fine; but I had a little trouble accepting any character's bleak inability and refusal to find at least some redeeming power in love. Also, Trevor attributes Horahan's madness all too conveniently to guilt arising from his own act of violence toward the Gaults, and the way it sets in motion the chain of events that splits the Gault family. Strangely, it was a couple of secondary characters, Henry and Bridget, who I found far more endearing and captivating. They demonstrate great strength and tenacity in living their lives with happiness and purpose, in spite of the unfair toll the folly of the Gaults inflicts on them. If the incomprehensibility of the characters' actions gets in the way of your engaging with them, Trevor's relentless use of passive voice narration may compound the problem. Trevor can describe two people leaving a restaurant after having coffee, but instead of saying "they paid for their coffee," he finds it necessary to say "some coins were left." Over the novel's course, I found this mode of narration to be very cold, and it left me feeling the narrative had a distancing, alienating quality toward me as reader. With Trevor's thematic concerns of action and consequence, and personal lives in the midst of historical events being solidly in evidence, I won't hesitate to check out some of his other titles in quite the same way I would hesitate to recommend this one.
Rating:
Summary: Tries to answer the big question: Why are we here?
Review: William Trevor is a master of nuance and existential questions with no answers. In The Story of Lucy Gault, it seems he's trying to answer a couple of the biggies: Why are we here, and what is the meaning of life.
Set in the 20s in Ireland, this novel addresses the issues of loss and longing. Not wanting to leave her beloved ancestral home, Lucy runs away into the woods on the eve of her family's departure for England. Bereft, believing she's killed herself, her parents cut all ties with their past and wander Europe through the decades. Lucy is not dead; she's just broken her leg. But when she's returned to the house, of course her family is nowhere to be found. She lives out her life in her old home, alone, almost hypnotized by her past.
Trevor's elegiac sense of place and deep understanding of the tragedy of the Irish character are perfectly suited for this novel. The Story of Lucy Gault is a book to be treasured quietly, preferably while one is seated in a deep wing-backed chair in front of a fire, and, on a gleaming side table, a drop of Irish whisky in a Waterford glass, poured from a crystal decanter.
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