A Bit on the Side (book review)

A book review from The Movie Snob:

William Trevor, A Bit on the Side (2004). Trevor is an Irishman in his seventies, and this is his most recent collection of short stories. I am not much into short stories generally, but I read a rhapsodic review of this book in a magazine in which the reviewer hailed Trevor as the greatest living writer of short stories in the English language, or something like that. I’m not qualified to comment on that estimation, but I can say that this book did nothing to change my general preference for novels over short stories. The twelve stories in this collection are generally very short, and nothing much happens in most of them. A woman is visited by two well-meaning sisters after her husband of 23 loveless years has died. A boy at a boarding school and one of the school’s female servants notice each other. An Irish girl from an impoverished family goes to work as a servant for a wealthy family. A pair of adulterous lovers breaks up. Generally, the stories are nice vignettes with some well-drawn characters, but that’s about all they are. If that’s your cup of tea, go for it.