" The Story of Lucy Gault  . . . once read, will never be forgotten."— The Washington Post Book World "Trevor was our twentieth century Chekov." —Wall Street Journal The stunning novel from highly acclaimed author William Trevor is a brilliant, subtle, and moving story of love, guilt, and forgiveness. The Gault family leads a life of privilege in early 1920s Ireland, but the threat of violence leads the parents of nine-year-old Lucy to decide to leave for England, her mother's home. Lucy cannot bear the thought of leaving Lahardane, their country house with its beautiful land and nearby beach, and a dog she has befriended. On the day before they are to leave, Lucy runs away, hoping to convince her parents to stay. Instead, she sets off a series of tragic misunderstandings that affect all of Lahardane's inhabitants for the rest of their lives. "Captain Everard Gault wounded the boy in the right shoulder on the night of June the twenty-first, nineteen twenty-one." So opens Trevor's latest novel, with an act of political violence: the setting is rural Ireland, the Captain's wife is English, and three youths have come, under cover of darkness, to set fire to the family house. The wounding is, as it happens, an accident—the shot had been intended merely as a warning—but it quickly becomes clear to the Gaults that they must leave their beloved home. Eight-year-old Lucy, however, has other ideas, and her rebellion has devastating consequences. How should the loyalties to past and future, family and country, be measured? The tragedies that befall the Gaults are difficult to bear, because no one is clearly accountable. As the author delicately probes the nature of personal and political responsibility, the reader squirms with discomfort, longing for a scapegoat and yet aware of the implications of that longing. Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker "One of Trevor's finest works . . . Few living writers are capable of such mournful depth as William Trevor, and here he has given us an evensong to time itself." — The Boston Globe "Trevor was and remains an author against whom other talents are measured. His work earns its place in the canon that 'time’s esteem' will keep alive.” —The Economist "Mr. Trevor's pure observation and transparent prose should shame other writers." — New York Sun "Beautifully drawn and revelatory. Beautifully drawn and revelatory." — Harper's Magazine "Beautiful and devastating . . . Trevor has once again captured the terrible beauty of Ireland's fate, and the fate of us all-at the mercy of history, circumstance, and the vicissitudes of time." —Alice McDermott, The Atlantic Monthly "From the award-winning author of Felicia's Journey and My House in Umbria , a new novel that may well be his masterpiece." — Philadelphia Inquirer William Trevor  was born in Mitchelstown, County Cork, and spent his childhood in provincial Ireland. He studied at Trinity College, Dublin. He is the author of twenty-nine books, including  Felicia’s Journey , which won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and was made into a motion picture, and  The Story of Lucy Gault,  which was shortlisted for both the Man Booker Prize and the Whitbread Fiction Prize. In 1996 he was the recipient of the Lannan Award for Fiction. In 2001, he won the Irish Times Literature Prize for fiction. Two of his books were chosen by  The New York Times  as best books of the year, and his short stories appeared regularly in  The New Yorker . In 1997, he was named Honorary Commander of the British Empire. Captain Everard Gault wounded the boy in the right shoulder on the night of June the twenty-first, nineteen twenty-one. Aiming above the trespassers' heads in the darkness, he fired the single shot from an upstairs window and then watched the three figures scuttling off, the wounded one assisted by his companions. They had come to fire the house, their visit expected because they had been before. On that occasion     they had come later, in the early morning, just after one. The sheepdogs had seen them off, but within a week the dogs lay poisoned in the yard and Captain Gault knew that the intruders would be back. 'We're stretched at the barracks, sir,' Sergeant Talty had said when he came out from Enniseala. 'Oh, stretched shocking, Captain.' Lahardane wasn't the only house under threat; every week somewhere went up, no matter how the constabulary were spread. 'Please God, there'll be an end to it,' Sergeant Talty said, and went away. Martial law prevailed, since the country was in a state of unrest, one that amounted to war. No action was taken about the poisoning of the dogs. When daylight came on the morning after the shooting, blood could be seen on the sea pebbles of the turn-around in front of the house. Two petrol tins were found behind a tree. The pebbles were raked, a couple of bucketfuls that had been discoloured in the accident taken away. Captain Gault thought it would be all right then: a lesson had been learnt. He