Misdirection

Although not a mystery writer in the usual sense, the late William Trevor was nevertheless a mystery writer. Each of the 10 stories in his final collection of short stories, Last Stories, is a little mystery, full of subtle clues that lead to a final resolution. Or don't. Sometimes the resolution, like the clues themselves, are so subtle readers may be left scratching their heads.

As in any good mystery, there is a lot of misdirection in Trevor's stories. Even the titles misdirect the reader. When the title refers to someone, the story is most often about someone else. "The Piano Teacher's Pupil," for example, is actually about the piano teacher, not the pupil. Once she had a lover who in time abandoned her, yet she treasures that time when he was hers. Now she has a student, more gifted than any other, who steals something each time he comes to her house. Yet she treasures having him as a pupil. Paradise comes at a price she's willing to pay.

"The Crippled Man," rather than being about the crippled man, is mostly about the woman who takes care of him, although it turns out that he is taking care of her.

In "The Unknown Girl," Trevor's focus falls on Harriet, a woman whose home this girl had sometimes cleaned before stepping into traffic and being killed. Gradually Harriet comes to realize that the girl's death may be related to her unrequited love for Harriet's son.

Trevor's stories are like paintings on which the artist adds a dab of paint here and a dab of paint there. Not until the final brushstroke does an observer realize what the painting reveals. At times he even refers to different characters in alternate sentences in the same paragraph, requiring careful reading (and rereading) to understand what exactly is going on.

His stories don't make easy reading, yet they are so tender, so beautiful, so delicate that they are all worth the effort.