The Story of Lucy Gault is set in Ireland, beginning in the early 1920s. Lucy’s family are Protestant landowners and one night her father discovers three Catholic lads attempting to burn his house down. In his efforts to scare them off he ends up shooting one of them and, fearing retribution, determines that his family must leave Ireland. Nine year old Lucy is devastated, understanding nothing of the political climate, and decides to run away. A search leads to the conclusion that she has drowned. By the time she is discovered, alive but injured, her parents are in continental Europe and efforts to contact them fail repeatedly.

This is a book best read for its melancholic atmosphere. Very little happens plot wise with Lucy, her parents, and other characters unable to move on with their lives, to overcome their regrets, grief and sadness surrounding the opening events. It’s as if their ability to live has been paused or suspended. Lucy, for instance, turns her back on the possibility of love and marriage, believing she cannot deserve such things until she has her parents’ forgiveness for running away. The atmosphere of the book is of course dependent on the writing and Trevor excels at showing, not telling, and at depicting haunted characters, isolated from the world around them, for whom time has stood still. His style is understated, not theatrical. It’s a seemingly simple story yet the attentive reader will find depth and additional layers. Overall it is a sad book but there are moments of reconciliation and therefore hope at the end.