After all the tinkering is done, the biggering and bettering, the rebuilding and ruining, we will have only books like William Trevor’s new collection Cheating at Canasta,” to remind us how serious, noble, painful and happy human life once was. Perhaps there is an eighth type of short story after all: the Trevorian.” -The New York Times Book Review Literature will outpace us, like the cockroaches. These stories stay in the mind long after they’re finished because they’re so solid, so deliberately shaped and directed so surely toward their solemn, harsh conclusions. Trevor is not the Irish Chekhov….he has created a version of the short story that almost ignores the form’s hundred or so years of intricate evolution. Trevor wants us to see the point of his narratives: he wants us to experience a small but genuine catharsis as we reach the last lines, to understand what the story is trying to say…Trevor is quite at ease with lengthy passages of time…Trevor’s method and aim are very precise….Trevor both shows and tells, in case we miss the point-something Chekhov never did. Magisterial.Trevor’s stories, however dark they may seem, however forlornly uncompromising, are actually significantly shaped.
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