SOURCE: Bonaccorso, Richard. “Not Noticing History: Two Tales by William Trevor.” Connecticut Review 18, no. 1 (spring 1996): 21-7.

In the following essay, Bonaccorso delineates the role of history in Trevor's stories “Beyond the Pale” and “The News from Ireland.”

What is history? Is it a kind of truth that transcends our individual lives, and, essentially, our understanding? Or is it our creation, an external manifestation of our lives together, of relationships that begin at the level of intimacy? Here, at this base point, we often find the wisdom of fiction.

A prevalent device for the revelation of truth in William Trevor's fiction is his characters' evasion or subversion of it. When these characters are seen in their social contexts, it is historical truth that often emerges like an uninvited guest, insinuating itself into collective experience and individual lives. Amorphous and mainly perceptible in shapes of family, class, and culture, history...