Angels at the Ritz

by William Trevor, Peter White (Illustrator)

With a few deft strokes these twelve stories open up secret lives, buried aspirations and guilty pasts. Whether the setting is a brief encounter in Persia or a wife-swapping party in the suburbs, a pre-war English tennis party or an Irish wedding. William Trevor reveals himself once more as a master of regret and betrayal: and a master of telling a story which is never false to the human heart.

Contents: In Isfahan/The Distant Past/Angels at the Ritz/Mrs Silly/The Tennis Court/A Complicated Nature/Teresa's Wedding/Office Romances/Mr McNamara/Afternoon Dancing/Last Wishes/Mrs Acland's Ghost

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Literature

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

William Trevor, KBE grew up in various provincial towns and attended a number of schools, graduating from Trinity College, in Dublin, with a degree in history. He first exercised his artistry as a sculptor, working as a teacher in Northern Ireland and then emigrated to England in search of work when the school went bankrupt. He could have returned to Ireland once he became a successful writer, he said, "but by then I had become a wanderer, and one way and another, I just stayed in England ... I hated leaving Ireland. I was very bitter at the time. But, had it not happened, I think I might never have written at all."

In 1958 Trevor published his first novel, A Standard of Behaviour, to little critical success. Two years later, he abandoned sculpting completely, feeling his work had become too abstract, and found a job writing copy for a London advertising agency. 'This was absurd,' he said. 'They would give me four lines or so to write and four or five days to write it in. It was so boring. But they had given me this typewriter to work on, so I just started writing stories. I sometimes think all the people who were missing in my sculpture gushed out into the stories.' He published several short stories, then his second and third novels, which both won the Hawthornden Prize (established in 1919 by Alice Warrender and named after William Drummond of Hawthornden, the Hawthornden Prize is one of the UK's oldest literary awards). A number of other prizes followed, and Trevor began working full-time as a writer in 1965.

Since then, Trevor has published nearly 40 novels, short story collections, plays, and collections of nonfiction. He has won three Whitbread Awards, a PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. In 1977 Trevor was appointed an honorary (he holds Irish, not British, citizenship) Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to literature and in 2002 he was elevated to honorary Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE). Since he began writing, William Trevor regularly spends half the year in Italy or Switzerland, often visiting Ireland in the other half. He lived in Devon, in South West England, on an old mill surrounded by 40 acres of land.

Reviews

[lapetitesouris · Rating 5 out of 5]

"... intrigued by the old-fashioned quality of the place, they'd hear the story of this woman whose husband who had inopportunely died, who existed now only in the world of her house and gardens, who lived in the past because she did not care for the present."

Every single short story in this is an absolute masterpiece. These stories are all centered around the human condition, all stories so rich in detail and so entirely complete. I don't usually enjoy short stories because I find they're lacking. These are absolutely brilliant. I'm hooked. Look forward to reading more William Trevor

Second reading notes:
Stories I absolutely love - The Distant Past, The Tennis Court (which is part of a beautiful Trilogy "Matilda's England" featured in another collection of short stories), Teresa's Wedding, Mr McNamara, Last Wishes and Mrs Acland's Ghost (💔)

[Joanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love his stories, I have a stack of his books by my bed TBR. Heaven.

[Chris Burkhalter · Rating 5 out of 5]

"There are casualties in wars... thousands of miles from where the fighting is."

[Klára · Rating 4 out of 5]

Budiž autorovi země lehká, jako mnohým dalším, které si rok 2016 vzal. Kniha obsahuje povídky, jejichž hrdiny jsou zcela obyčejní lidé. Ve většina nedochází ani k žádnému výraznému dějovému zvratu. Prostě nám autor odvypráví kousek ze života několika lidí. A co si z toho odnést? Ne vždycky se musí dít nečekané zvraty, aby náš život byl zajímavý. Občas si můžete poslechnout vyprávění od někoho, kdo žil zcela všedním životem. Nepotkal královnu ani z jeho dětí nejsou nositelé Nobelovy ceny.

[Timothy Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent writer of short stories, love them

[Fusako · Rating 1 out of 5]

日本語訳は「リッツホテルの天使たち」
誤訳と日本語の拙さで、読み進めることができなかった。
ほおずき書籍の編集者、何とかならなかったのか？
ウィリアム・トレヴァーの作品群には、素晴らしい訳者のものとそうでない訳者のギャップが激しい、と最近つくづく感じている。

[Julia Przybył · Rating 4 out of 5]

Większość opowiadań świetnych, lubię takie

[Nick Turner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Teresa's Wedding audio adaptation, read by Denys Hawthorne, review.

At a bleak wedding reception, a pregnant bride discovers why her marriage might just work.

"Take my hand, take my whole life too."
Irish family drama. Stuck in the family way, Teresa is forced to marry "some faceless bodiless person, beyond imagination", or be consigned to the nunnery. Lyrical language and dry humour.

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

At a bleak wedding reception, a young pregnant bride discovers why her marriage might just work. Read by Denys Hawthorne.

A consistenetly enjoyable author:

3* Love and Summer
3* The Collected Stories
3* Theresa's Wedding from Angels at the Ritz
3* Cheating at Canasta
3* A Bit on the Side
4* Death in Summer
3* My House in Umbria
3* Reading Turgenev
3* The Distant Past and other stories

[Raimo Wirkkala · Rating 4 out of 5]

A terrific collection of short stories by a master of the form.