SOURCE: Lively, Penelope. “Models of Design and Performance.” Spectator (5 October 1996): 51-2.

In the following review, Lively provides a favorable assessment of After Rain.

Short stories take up almost as much space in William Trevor's long list of titles as do novels—After Rain is his eighth collection. He is indeed blessed in this facility with both fictional forms. It is hard to write a good novel, but to serve up even one memorable story is to pass through the eye of a needle. Anyone can write a story—oh, dear me, yes—but it is the form that most definitively sorts out the men from the boys. There is something about a Rolls-Royce of a short story that is apparent within the first few lines—control, economy, tension. The aftertaste remains for ever, with luck—whether it is the Chekhovian mood and manner story, or the Dahl twist-in-the-tail...