the story of lucy gault by william trevor

Tom Wingo is an unemployed South Carolinian football coach whose internist wife is having an affair with a pompous cardiac man. Though faintly mannered and stiff in the telling, it’s a beautiful story of history, grief, and forgiveness.Ī flabby, fervid melodrama of a high-strung Southern family from Conroy ( The Great Santini, The Lords of Discipline), whose penchant for overwriting once again obscures a genuine talent.

And a careful, difficult, strange, and beautiful reconciliation is worked out at Lahardane. Captain Gault comes home after many years to an Ireland (and a daughter) changed beyond recognition. During these years, one of the young men who tried to torch the house at Lahardane becomes increasingly guilt-ridden over his actions, eventually deciding that he has to confront the people he attempted to kill. So Lucy grew up alone at Lahardane, looked after by the kindly caretaker couple and provided for by the family solicitor.

By the time the girl was discovered alive (by the household staff), Lucy’s parents were gone for parts unknown, and all attempts to track them down failed. Unfortunately, the Gaults concluded that she was dead rather than missing, and they became all the more determined to put Ireland behind them forever. Their nine-year-old daughter Lucy, however, refused to go, running away the night before they were scheduled to depart. Gault decided that enough was enough and made hasty plans to leave Ireland. After a group of insurrectionists attempted to set fire to their house one night, Captain and Mrs. During the uprisings that raged throughout the countryside in the years immediately following WWI, the Gaults (like most Protestant landlords) found themselves in real peril of their lives. But the Irish have long memories, and the fact that the Gaults originally came to the island as adventurers in the service of the British Crown set them apart from the natives well into the 20th century. The Gaults have lived in Ireland a long time-since the 16th century, at least, although they didn’t develop their estate at Lahardane until the 1700s. A moving tale of history gone wrong and tragedy redeemed, by renowned Irish novelist Trevor ( The Hill Bachelors, 2000, etc.).

The story of lucy gault by william trevor