SOURCE: Taylor, Sue. “Tragic Beauty.” Quadrant 43, no. 6 (June 1999): 85.

In the following review, Taylor delineates the tragic aspects of the stories in After Rain.

William Trevor is a prolific writer and has won many awards. If you have never read his work, After Rain is a good place to start.

After Rain is a collection of a dozen very powerful, tragic tales, truly beautifully written. Trevor's stories are black. Sinister. Poignant. Shockingly real. And, above all, tragic. For a character to earn the description “tragic”, he must contribute to his own downfall. If a tree falls on him, it might be a disaster, but it is not a tragedy. But if he climbs a tree to rescue a kitten, and falls to his death, it could be a tragedy.

Every one of Trevor's stories is a tragedy. In each case, the protagonist could have chosen another direction, and the...