Reviews for A Bit on the Side

The average rating for A Bit on the Side based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-11-07 00:00:00 Catherine Pehr Twelve short stories; all good and one masterpiece, the title story kept till the end. "Something was different this morning; on the walk from Chiltern Street she had sensed, for an instant only, that their love affair was not as it had been yesterday." In the blurbs, one from the New Yorker, in which Trevor published most of these stories over the years, one critic said "Trevor is probably the greatest living writer of short stories in the English language." Well, Trevor is gone now, but he's certainly excellent as a short story writer and as a novelist. As with his novels, many of the subjects are lonely people, and almost all are leading drab, confined, constrained lives. In one titled "Solitude," we learn how a young girl became a friendless old lady, living in hotels across Europe, her only acquaintances maids, cooks, bar tenders and bell hops. In "On the Streets," a friendless divorced man stalks his former wife. (Married five months - was that a mistake?). He's a waiter, fixated on and obsessed by a single incident at work for which he was criticized a long time ago. In "The Dancing-Master's Music," a maid at an inn spends her whole life (from age 14 to retirement) working at the inn and reflecting back on a single musical performance. (I'm reminded of another Trevor character, a young man in Silence of the Garden, who goes to see a traveling knife-throwing act as a boy and that seems to end up being the highlight of his life.) In "Graillis's Legacy," a widower, a small town librarian, rejects a substantial inheritance as inappropriate, coming from a woman, a former library patron he knew. It's as if he worries that it might offend --- who? His dead wife? Understatement is a strength of Trevor's prose as in this passage about the village priest from "Justina's Priest." "He had seen his congregations fall off and struggled against the feeling that he'd been deserted. Confusion spread from the mores of the times into the Church itself; in combating it, he prayed for guidance but was not heard." He speaks of a young woman wearing a shirt "with an indecency on it." (The shirt said "F--- Me.") In this story the priest intervenes with a young, mentally deficient woman's family to warn them that she might run off to Dublin with the girl wearing the T-shirt. A few stories involve couples and married people. (Happily? Of course not, where would the story be?) In "Big Bucks," a young woman is engaged to a man who goes to America and they plan that she will follow him. Is she in love with him or with a dream of the distant continent? In "Sitting with the Dead," the middle-aged Geraghty sisters arrive at the homes of the dead and dying (whether they know you or not). One woman, a widow since the night before, reveals to them a lot more than she intended. Young people would say TMI - too much information! Great stories! Irish village from sites.nd.edu/oblation Photo of the author from avondhupress.ie

Review # 2 was written on 2017-03-08 00:00:00 Alan Smith 3.5 Although this author is rather new to me, there is something that attracts in his writing. He seems to have such a firm grasp of time and place, setting detailed scenes and situations. In his portrayal of people, he treats them with both tenderness and respect. In these short stories, the connecting thread seems to be loss, whether of self, a friend, a way of life, even faith. The first story, Sitting with the dead, is probably the strongest and the desolation and melancholy of this woman, who has now lost her husband is stirring. Yet, as we find out, she lost something much more valuable long ago. The story that has stayed with me though is called, Justina's Priest, a young woman, of lower intelligence who is living with her elder sister, her one and only friend having moved away. She helps out the local priest by caring for the church and he is used to seeing her there. He is having a crisis of faith, wondering what his, life means, when Justina receives a letter from her friend. How this scenario plays out is the story and for me a memorable one. Nice, pleasant stories, meaningful showing a wonderful grasp of people and their varied circumstances.