Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Reynolds Price

Critical Essay by Reynolds Price

SOURCE: "A Lifetime of Tales from the Land of Broken Hearts," in The New York Times Book Review, February 28, 1993, pp. 125-7.

Price is a well-respected American novelist, poet, short story writer, and critic. In the following positive review of The Collected Stories, he examines the scope and major themes of Trevor's short fiction, praising the "range of knowledge and depth of feeling" of the short stories in the collection.

The voices of extraordinary writers like William Trevor are almost as quickly recognizable as those of great singers. Any lover of song will know a Pavarotti, a Leontyne Price, in an opening phrase—often in a single note. The genuinely sizable writers of fiction announce their presence almost as early. Some, like Conrad or Hemingway, speak in timbres distinctive enough to declare their makers in a single sentence. More often the novelist or short-story writer quietly names himself or herself,...
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