This careful, impressive study covers the whole range of William Trevor's long writing career, as well as providing an informative biographical summary: it is fascinating to read, for instance, of Trevor's earlier career as a sculptor under his actual name of William Cox. The author gives thorough, informative accounts of the major works, intelligently dividing her survey into thematic sections within a loose biographical framework rather than attempting a step by step chronology.
Naturally, one of the book's chief interests is its exploration of Trevor's Anglo-Irish world. He began as, in many respects, an English novelist with only a slight Irish accent. What MacKenna describes as his first recognisably "Irish" work, Mrs Eckdorf in O'Neill's Hotel, was published in 1969, some 11 years after his debut as a writer. As the Northern crisis obtruded more and more on his consciousness, Trevor began to explore his own past, both in its traditional Anglo-Irish dimension - the Big House, etc - and in relation to the Northern Troubles, as well as the unadorned world of rural Ireland - most triumphantly, of course, in The Ballroom of Romance. This Anglo-Irish concern has provided perhaps the most vital and enduring dimension to his work. Other areas covered include Trevor's obsession with evil and his work for radio, television and film. The book ends with a singularly unrewarding interview with its subject.
Interesting as all this is, one could have wished for a greater degree of evaluation in this study: what works by Trevor form his most distinctive achievements, or is there a particular mode in which he truly excels: the novel, the short story? Instead, there is a rather seamless quality to this exercise, which might leave the reader not familiar with the oeuvre at rather a loss where to start.
Terence Killeen is an Irish Times staff jour- nalist.