“Dear Readers and Booksellers: If you have not yet experienced the great pleasure of a story by William Trevor, I urge you to read this new novel, and to set it in pride of place in your stores. Because the haunting story of Lucy Gault will not fail to capture you with its mystery, its compassion, and the beauty of its writing.” -- Louise Dennys, Executive Publisher, Knopf Canada William Trevor is beloved around the world as one of the finest writers today -- and with just cause: his new novel is a masterpiece of love and loss, and lives suspended in time. Lucy Gault is nine when her parents are faced with the agonizing decision to flee Ireland to be safe from the violence that privilege and Lucy’s English mother have brought upon them -- or to stay in their home and risk losing it to the threat of arson. Lucy cannot bear the thought of leaving Lahardane’s beautiful pastureland, the seashore below pale clay cliffs, and the nameless dog that has become her companion. So she runs away into the nearby woods to convince her parents to stay. Instead, her actions begin the unravelling of her family when they find two bits of her clothing and conclude she has thrown herself into the sea. Now desperate to be rid of the place where their much-loved daughter has died, Captain and Heloise Gault set off to wander restlessly across Europe. In the Lahardane woods, two weeks after the Gaults have gone, the groundskeeper finds the child lying lame and half-dead. He and his wife become Lucy’s life companions as she keeps a 30-year vigil of love and guilt waiting for her parents’ return.

ウィリアム・トレヴァーが描くのは、たった一度の無垢な過ちが一生を支配してしまうという、あまりにも静謐で残酷な運命の縮図です。本作の真髄は、物語の背後に漂う言葉にならない沈黙の重みにあります。アイルランドの峻烈な風景と溶け合うように、失われた時間と孤独を慈しむトレヴァーの筆致は、読者の魂を震わせるほどに透き通っており、個人の悲劇を崇高なまでの祈りへと昇華させています。 主人公ルーシーが三十年もの歳月をかけて捧げる待つという行為は、罪悪感を超えた純粋な愛の証明に他なりません。物語の深淵に流れるのは、単なる絶望ではなく、ままならない人生を受け入れる人間の気高いまでの忍耐です。時の流れが止まったかのような錯覚を抱かせる極上の文体を通じて、私たちは赦しとは何かという深遠な文学的命題に、これ以上ないほど情熱的に直面させられるでしょう。