Love and Summer

Love and Summer by William Trevor had been on my To Read list, although I have no recollection of how or why I put it on there. Reading it made me impressed with my past good taste, though, because it's a lovely little book, just a touch too long to be called a novella.

Set in a tiny Irish village, it tells the story of Ellie, a young farm wife who married the employer she was sent to work for after being raised in a convent orphanage, and Florian, the out-of-town photographer she falls in love with one summer. The lives and troubles of Ellie's husband and other townspeople come into play and ultimately determine the outcome of a decision that Ellie faces at the end of the summer. It's a quiet story that starts out slow and, although the pace only ever quickens by a minuscule amount, still manages to grow on you. A lot of importance is placed on what is not said between characters in the book, or on things that are said in scenes that the reader doesn't get to see. The writing manages to be simple and straightforward yet also somewhat lyrical, in a way that really evokes the other time and place of this village, and that reminded me a bit of the wonderful Brooklyn by Colm Toibin.