Volume 56, Number 18 · November 19, 2009
The Subtle Touch
By David Lodge
Love and Summer
by William Trevor
Viking, 212 pp., $25.95
Novelists seldom retire willingly. Usually it is forced upon them by a dearth of ideas or rejection by publishers, depressing experiences when one's sense of identity and self-esteem, not to mention income, is intimately involved with the continuing production of new books. But those who manage to go on writing and publishing into what used to be called old age are apt to be told that they are not as good as they used to be, and often this is true. William Trevor seems enviably free of such anxieties. At the age of eighty-one, having published twenty-seven novels and short-story collections in the last fifty years, which have brought him critical acclaim and many honors and awards, he has just produced another beautifully crafted novel, which was longlisted for this year's Man Booker Prize, and was unlucky not to make the shortlist.
Review, 3413 words
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