Fools of fortune - William Trevor

Fools of Fortune - William Trevor's astonishing, prize-winning novel about courage and love

Winner of the Whitbread Novel of the Year Award

'To my mind Trevor's best novel and a very fine one' Graham Greene

'William Trevor at his best' New York Times

When an informer's body is found shortly after the First World War on the estate of the Quintons, a wealthy Irish family, an appalling cycle of revenge is set in motion. Led by a zealous sergeant, the Black and Tans fire the family home, and only young Willie and his mother Evie escape alive. Fatherless, Willie grows into manhood while his alcoholic mother's bitter resentment festers. And though he finds love, Willie, too, seems unable to forget the terrible injuries of the past ...

'Arresting, powerful and indelible. A story of courage and love ... as tender and wistful as an Irish lament' Washington Post

Readers of The Story of Lucy Gault and Love and Summer will adore Fools of Fortune. It will also be cherished 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.