The Story of Lucy Gault

The Story of Lucy Gault

Summary

Shortlisted for the 2002 Man Booker Prize

'A masterwork. I doubt that I have read a book as moving in at least a decade. A homage to the redemptive power of love' Independent

Summer, 1921. Eight-year-old Lucy Gault clings to the glens and woods above Lahardane - the home her family is being forced to abandon. She knows the Gaults are no longer welcome in Ireland and that danger threatens. Lucy, however, is headstrong and decides that somehow she must force her parents into staying. But the path she chooses ends in disaster. One chance event, unwanted and unexpected, will blight the lives of the Gaults for years to come and bind each of them in different ways to this one moment in time, to this wild stretch of coast . . .

'Flawless. Guaranteed to keep you reading - all through the night if necessary - to find out what happens. Trevor's best novel' New Statesman

'Dark, elegantly written ... a book to relish' Independent on Sunday

About the author

William Trevor

William Trevor was born in Mitchelstown, County Cork. He has written many novels, and has won many prizes including the Hawthornden Prize, the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Award, and the Whitbread Book of the Year Award. His most recent novel Love and Summer was longlisted for the Booker Prize. He is also a renowned writer of short stories, and his two-volume Collected Stories was published by Viking Penguin in 2009. In 1999 William Trevor received the prestigious David Cohen Literature Prize in recognition of a lifetime's literary achievement, and in 2002 he was knighted for his services to literature.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more