PositiveLondon Review of Books (UK)De Waal is a deep insider writing a series of familiar and familial letters to Moïse de Camondo, addressing him as ‘Friend’, ‘Dear friend’, ‘Monsieur’, ‘Cher Monsieur’, ‘Mon cher Monsieur’ and even ‘Monsieur le Comte’. His manner is softly prowling, whether inside or outside the house and its archives; his tone is intimate, melancholic, speculative, at times whimsical. At the end he sternly resists any idea of ‘closure’ about the disasters of 1941-45.
William Trevor
RaveThe GuardianTrevor writes as an adult for adults, expecting you to understand both life and prose; he is the subtlest purveyor of the partial truths we humans mostly live by ... There is much inner solitude in this world; happiness is temporary and conditional; often there has been damage a long way back, damage that cannot be mended ... this is the real Trevor. The story is in part a comparison of griefs ... This pattern of readerly doubt and misprision is typical of a William Trevor story. We will be presented with an event – an accident in the street, a death, a funeral, a chance meeting, an abandonment – that will widen ... But it doesn’t go where we predict, because, in a way we sense rather than observe, it has ceased to be a story. It has become life ... None but those with a complete mastery of fiction can walk this line.
