William Trevor CoxKBE (24 May 1928 – 20 November 2016), known by his pen nameWilliam Trevor, was an Irish novelist, playwright, and short story writer. One of the elder statesmen of the Irish literary world,[5] he is widely regarded as one of the greatest contemporary writers of short stories in the English language.[6]
He was educated at a succession of schools including St Columba's College, Dublin (where he was taught by Oisín Kelly) and at Trinity College Dublin, from which he received a degree in history. Trevor worked as a sculptor[10] under the name Trevor Cox[11] after he graduated from Trinity College, supplementing his income by teaching.
He married Jane Ryan in 1952 and emigrated to England, working as a teacher, a sculptor and then as a copywriter for an advertising agency. During this time he and his wife had their first son.[12] In 1952 he became an art teacher at Bilton Grange, a prep school near Rugby. Trevor was commissioned to carve reliefs for several churches, including All Saints, Braunston, Northamptonshire. In 1956 he moved to Somerset to work as a sculptor[13] and carried out commissions for churches. He stopped wood carving in 1960.
His first novel, A Standard of Behaviour, was published in 1958 (by Hutchinson of London), but received little critical success. He later disowned this work, and, according to his obituary in The Irish Times, "refused to have it republished".[12] It was, in fact, republished in 1982 and in 1989.
In 1964, at the age of 36, Trevor was awarded the Hawthornden Prize for The Old Boys. This success encouraged Trevor to become a full-time writer.
In 1971, he and his family moved from London to Devon in South West England, first to Dunkeswell, then in 1980 to Shobrooke, where he lived until his death. Despite having spent most of his life in England, he considered himself to be "Irish in every vein".[14]
William Trevor died peacefully in his sleep on 20 November 2016. He was 88 years old.[15][16]
Works and themes
He wrote several collections of short stories that were well-received. His short stories often follow a Chekhovian pattern. The characters in Trevor's work are typically marginalized members of society: children, the elderly, single middle-aged men and women, or the unhappily married. Those who cannot accept the reality of their lives create their own alternative worlds into which they retreat. A number of the stories use Gothic elements to explore the nature of evil and its connection to madness. Trevor acknowledged the influence of James Joyce on his short-story writing, and "the odour of ashpits and old weeds and offal" can be detected in his work,[citation needed] but the overall impression is not of gloominess, since, particularly in his early work, the author's wry humour offers the reader a tragicomic version of the world. He adapted much of his work for stage, television and radio. In 1990, Fools of Fortune was made into a film directed by Pat O'Connor, followed by a 1999 film adaptation of Felicia's Journey, which was directed by Atom Egoyan.
Trevor set his stories in both England and Ireland; they range from black comedies to tales based on Irish history and politics. A common theme is the tension between Protestant (usually Church of Ireland) landowners and Catholic tenants. His early books are peopled by eccentrics who speak in a pedantically formal manner and engage in hilariously comic activities that are recounted by a detached narrative voice. Instead of one central figure, the novels feature several protagonists of equal importance, drawn together by an institutional setting, which acts as a convergence point for their individual stories. The later novels are thematically and technically more complex. The operation of grace in the world is explored, and several narrative voices are used to view the same events from different angles. Unreliable narrators and different perspectives reflect the fragmentation and uncertainty of modern life. Trevor also explored the decaying institution of the "Big House" in his novels Fools of Fortune and The Story of Lucy Gault. [citation needed]
Trevor was nominated for the Booker Prize five times, making the shortlist in 1970, 1976, 1991 and 2002, and the longlist in 2009.[19] He won the Whitbread Prize three times and the Hawthornden Prize once.[20]
Since 2002, when non-American authors became eligible to compete for the O. Henry Award, Trevor won the award four times, for his stories Sacred Statues (2002), The Dressmaker's Child (2006), The Room (2007), a juror favourite of that year, and Folie à Deux (2008).
A monument to William Trevor was unveiled in Trevor's native Mitchelstown on 25 August 2004. It is a bronze sculpture by Liam Lavery and Eithne Ring in the form of a lectern, with an open book incorporating an image of the writer and a quotation, as well as the titles of his three Whitbread Prize-winning works, and two others of significance.[citation needed]
On 23 May 2008, the eve of his 80th birthday, a commemorative plaque, indicating the house on Upper Cork Street, Mitchelstown, where Trevor was born, was unveiled by Louis McRedmond. [citation needed]
