For the second post in a row I'll be discussing a knighted author. Previously I wrote about Englishman, (Sir) Terry Pratchett, and his first Discworld book. Today I'll be discussing a haunting short story by the Irish (Sir) William Trevor.
I wonder what it would be like to live in a country where authors were knighted for service to literature...
Far from the glory of knighthood, "The Dressmaker's Child" is a story about ordinary folks . It is, in fact, the very ordinariness of Trevor's characters that makes the story so honest and strangely beautiful.
Just like The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, "The Dressmaker's Child" is mainstream literary fiction that takes on some speculative overtones. The child in the story is not a ghost, yet she haunts like one. The mother is an outcast woman, not a witch- yet her spell entrances, just the same. The story is not really supernatural fiction, but it certainly owes much of its ambiance to the ghost story genre.
I loved the way Trevor established the concrete, the familiar, the real, then blended it with subtle mysticism. "The Dressmaker's Child" makes the reader feel as though magic might brush past at any moment- particularly when it's least expected.
The story is part of a collection, Cheating at Canasta, which ranks at #34,288 in the Kindle store and #228,971 in Amazon's Bestselling Books.
I wonder what it would be like to live in a country where authors were knighted for service to literature...
Far from the glory of knighthood, "The Dressmaker's Child" is a story about ordinary folks . It is, in fact, the very ordinariness of Trevor's characters that makes the story so honest and strangely beautiful.
Just like The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, "The Dressmaker's Child" is mainstream literary fiction that takes on some speculative overtones. The child in the story is not a ghost, yet she haunts like one. The mother is an outcast woman, not a witch- yet her spell entrances, just the same. The story is not really supernatural fiction, but it certainly owes much of its ambiance to the ghost story genre.
I loved the way Trevor established the concrete, the familiar, the real, then blended it with subtle mysticism. "The Dressmaker's Child" makes the reader feel as though magic might brush past at any moment- particularly when it's least expected.
The story is part of a collection, Cheating at Canasta, which ranks at #34,288 in the Kindle store and #228,971 in Amazon's Bestselling Books.
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