A Bit on the Side: Stories
A Bit on the Side: Stories (MP3 CD)
Description
William Trevor is truly a Chekhov for our age, and a new collection of stories from him is always a cause for celebration. These twelve stories include:The waiter who divulges his shocking life of crime to his ex-wife.A woman repeats the story of her parents' unstable marriage after a horrible tragedy.The schoolgirl who regrets gossiping about the cuckolded man who tutors her.A middle-aged couple meet in a theatre bar for a squalid blind date.The disappointed priest who fears an innocent young girl may run away from home.Two self-certain sisters visit a newly widowed local woman.And, in the volume's title story, a middle-age accountant offers his reasons for ending a love affair. From these slender moments Trevor creates whole lives, conjuring up characters marked by bitterness and loss. William Trevor's graceful prose is a wonder in itself, and as convincing when inhabiting the mind of a school lunchmaid, an adulterous Irish country librarian or a murderer on the London streets. And as is always the case with William Trevor, venom and tragedy are never far from the still surface of the stories.At the heart of this stunning collection is Trevor's characteristic tenderness and unflinching eye for both the humanizing and dehumanizing aspects of modern urban and rural life.
About the Author
William Trevor 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. 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 named Best Books of the Year by the New York Times, and his short stories appear regularly in the New Yorker. In 1997, he was named Honorary Commander of the British Empire. He lives in Devon, England.William was born in Mitchelstown, County Cork, in 1928, and spent his childhood in provincial Ireland. He attended a number of Irish schools, then Trinity College in Dublin. He is a member of the Irish Academy of Letters and a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Among his recent novels is The Story of Lucy Gault, a Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2002 and a New York Times Notable Book. Josephine Bailey has won ten AudioFile Earphones Awards and a prestigious Audie Award, and Publishers Weekly named her Best Female Narrator in 2002. Her native British accent has been used in many audiobooks and voice-overs, including The Wild Thornberries, Uncle Gus, and Disney-Dreamworks projects. In addition to her award-winning voice work, Josephine is involved in television, film, and theater. On television she has played parts in Robin Hood, A Tale of Two Cities, and Sword of Freedom. In film she was featured in Shadow Hours, Life's a Circus, and Corridors of Blood. Her theater experience includes lead roles in Betrayal, Otherwise Engaged, and Blithe Spirit. Josephine received her training from the Corona Stage School in London and the Tracy Roberts Actors Studio in Los Angeles. Josephine currently resides in South Carolina. Simon Vance, a former BBC Radio presenter and newsreader, is a full-time actor who has appeared on both stage and television. He has recorded over four hundred audiobooks and has earned over twenty Earphones Awards from AudioFile magazine, including one for his narration of Theft by Peter Carey. A twelve-time Audie finalist, Simon has won three Audie Awards, including one for Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, and the 2008 Booklist Voice of Choice Award. He has also been named an AudioFile Golden Voice as well as an AudioFile Best Voice of 2009.
