The Children of Dynmouth

By William Trevor

Book Overview

The Children Of Dynmouth - a classic prize-winning novel by William Trevor

William Trevor's The Children of Dynmouth (Winner of the Whitbread Award and shortlisted for the Booker Prize) was first published in 1976 and is a classic account of evil lurking in the most unlikely places. In it we follow awkward, lonely, curious teenager Timothy Gedge as he wanders around the bland seaside town of Dynmouth. Timothy takes a prurient interest in the lives of the adults there, who only realise the sinister purpose to which he seeks to put his knowledge too late.

'A small masterpiece of understatement ... a work of rare compassion' Joyce Carol Oates, New York Times

If you enjoyed The Story of Lucy Gault and Love and Summer, you will love this book. It will also be adored by readers of Colm Toibin and William Boyd.

William Trevor was born in Mitchelstown, County Cork. He has written eighteen novels and novellas, and hundreds of short stories, for which he has won a number of prizes including the Hawthornden Prize, the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Award, the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the David Cohen Literature Prize in recognition of a lifetime's literary achievement. In 2002 he was knighted for his services to literature. His books in Penguin are: After Rain; A Bit on the Side; Bodily Secrets; Cheating at Canasta; The Children of Dynmouth; The Collected Stories (Volumes One and Two); Death in Summer; Felicia's Journey; Fools of Fortune; The Hill Bachelors; Love and Summer; The Mark-2 Wife; Selected Stories; The Story of Lucy Gault and Two Lives.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0241971837
• ISBN13: 9780241971833
• Release Date: December 2014
• Publisher: Viking
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.48 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.8" x 0.5" x 5.0"

Customer Reviews

Master Storyteller

This is the story of a 15 year old boy in a small English coastal town who learns about other members of the town and their misdeeds by spying on them. He seems to have a one track mind about what he wants and how to get it by blackmailing and spreading vicious rumors. You really want to strangle this kid or hope one of the victims of his spying will do it for you. Is this kid possessed by a demon? Are the claims he makes of his neighbors really true? And does this boy really have any kind of future? You almost can't wait till the end to find out! William Trevor is a master storyteller.

A Whimsical Trevor for once

William Trevor continues to lead the pack as my favourite living author throughout the world. His frugal use of the most precise language leaves a reader gasping at times, and he is an unparallelled master tragedian. Here, he has actually crafted a fairly humourous, if naughty, tale of a teenage "tearaway," as he himself might call the lad. Trevor imbues this lonesome council lad with some rather astonishing powers of perception that, once put to work with the singlemindedness reserved solely for what one really really wants, results in a domino effect of despair and destruction that washes over a small, raw, seaside Southern UK town. It remains funny throughout, however, a testament not only to Trevor's many gifts as a story-teller of genius and power but to his love for his flawed characters and thier powers of endurance.

Trevor at his sharpest - bitter and sweet.

This darkly funny expose of a British seaside town in the mid 70's is Trevor at his absolute best. Tim Gedge, the maladjusted anti-hero at the centre of the action, is a 12 year old boy with time on his hands and a determination to uncover the secret heartaches and hypocricies at the core of this trim English town. The details are razor sharp, the characters painfully portrayed, and the humour is very, very black - but there is a soul to this story - as there always is with Trevor. It tells you more about us sorry Brits than Notes from a Small Island ever could.