The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor

The Story of Lucy Gault

William Trevor

As soon as you read the first paragraph, you will be drawn in. The language is finely honed and haunting. Set in Ireland in 1921, this is a story of how one chance incident affects and changes lives for ever. Gripping and unbelievably sad, and yet somehow cathartic too, I read it in one sitting.

Extract
Captain Everard Gault wounded the boy in the right shoulder on the night of June the twenty-first, nineteen twenty-one. Aiming above the trespassers' heads in the darkness, he fired the single shot from an upstairs window and then watched the three figures scuttling off, the wounded one assisted by his companions.

When daylight came on the morning after the shooting, blood could be seen on the sea pebbles of the turn-around in front of the house .... The pebbles were raked, a couple of bucketfuls that had been discoloured in the accident taken away.

Captain Gault thought it would be all right then ....

Parallels
  • Atonement by Ian McEwan
  • The Children of Dynmouth by William Trevor