SOURCE: Williams, Margo. “Sex, Subtlety, and the Supernatural.” Cross Currents 47, no. 4 (winter 1997): 547-51.

In the following excerpt, Williams considers Trevor's subtlety in the stories in After Rain.

In William Trevor's twelve stories [After Rain], subtlety is the game, though he might do better with less. Subtlety can be wearing. One pattern is evident throughout: a series of events and an eccentric center, often a bit quirky, to explain things, the events sometimes testing the limits of our capacity to be bored, the center sometimes arriving at the artificial, more often hitting paydirt, some unexpected mystery or truth. A few summaries will illustrate.

A man sends a substitute to a party for him in “Timothy's Birthday.” The sub is a hoodlum whose very presence in the home of his parents is spiteful. He eats their food, drinks their liquor, and steals a little keepsake which he later pawns. He...