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Credits

Writer: William Trevor; Genres: Crime, Drama

Domestic cruelty, lives of quiet desperation, and the many tribulations of the Irish have been William Trevor's stock-in-trade for 30 years. Fans love the master's spare, unsentimental tales with hidden depths. What to make, then, of this creepy thriller, Felicia's Journey, this serial killer stalking sweet young things? Has Trevor gone all lurid and sensational? Not quite. Stout, squeaky-voiced Mr. Hilditch, 54, and lonely in his big house full of British Empire relics, dreaming of military glory and preying on women other men have wounded and discarded, turns out to be another Trevor character. Surprise: Serial killers are not glamorous monsters. This one's a piteous wretch, driven to insanity by an accumulation of the same small human cruelties Trevor has explored before. When this English loony pursues an Irish victim, plain Felicia, with ''the face for a nun,'' her stubborn simplicity confounds him. The outcome is both moral and heartbreaking, Trevor at his sly and subtle best. A


Posted Jan 13, 1995
 

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