# The Story of Lucy Gault

The Story of Lucy Gault is a novel written by William Trevor in 2002. The book is divided into three sections: the childhood, middle age and older times of the girl, Lucy. The story takes place in Ireland during the transition to the 21st century. It follows the protagonist Lucy and her immediate contacts. The book was shortlisted for the Booker and Whitbread Prizes in 2002.

## Plot summary

It begins with Lucy, on a night in 1921. She is the only child of an Anglo-Irish land owner on the coast of County Cork. It starts during the Irish War of Independence, when Loyalist Protestant landowners caught in the battle between the IRA and the British army had their houses burned. The place is under martial law and Captain Gault is disturbed by young arsonists from the nearby village. When he fires a warning shot with his old rifle, he injures a boy in the shoulder. Out of fear, the family plans to move to England. Lucy is not told why her family wishes to move and longs for the house she was kept from and the sea close by. On the eve of their departure, she hides in the woods. Due to a series of events, her parents are led to believe that she drowned in the sea.
By the time she is discovered, her parents are gone. She thus gets what she wished for, to live in the house, being taken care of by the house servants turned caretaker-farmers. Lucy lives a very lonely life, reading books and keeping bees. She feels very guilty about running away and thus feels that she deserves her loneliness. When another character, Ralph, tries to relieve her of her sad life, she feels that she cannot let him love her without, one of the characters opines, getting forgiveness from her parents. Her father returns after the Second World War, having spent the previous years in Italy and Switzerland, too late to salvage her happiness. They settle into an uneasy companionship, with too much unspoken.
Having lost the love of her life, she forms a bond with the person who was wounded by her father. Lucy spends many years visiting the asylum where the person is incarcerated in his confusion and his silence. Lucy in old age sees people with phones to their ears and hears on the wireless about the Internet, and wonders what it is.

## Reception

Upon release, The Story of Lucy Gault was generally well-received among the British press. The Daily Telegraph reported on reviews from several publications with a rating scale for the novel out of "Love It", "Pretty Good", "Ok", and "Rubbish": Guardian, Times, Independent, Sunday Telegraph, Observer, Sunday Times, New Statesman, and Literary Review reviews under "Love It" and Daily Telegraph, Independent On Sunday, and TLS reviews under "Pretty Good" and Spectator review under "Ok". The Guardian gave the novel an average rating of 9 out of 10 based on reviews from multiple British newspapers. On January/February 2003 issue of Bookmarks, the book received a (4.5 out of 5) based on critic reviews, with a critical summary saying, "Critics praise Trevor’s precise, graceful writing; every object has meaning, including the blue hydrangeas and the drawing-room portrait of the forgotten ancestor. His descriptions of Ireland’s forlorn beauty similarly come alive." On BookBrowse, the book received a from "Critics' Consensus" and for the media reviews on a rating scale out of five: Atlantic Monthly, Harper's Magazine, New York Sun, The Boston Globe, The New Yorker, The Washington Post Book World, Kirkus Reviews, and Publishers Weekly reviews under five and Booklist and Library Journal reviews under four. ReviewofBooks said on the critics consensus, "It's gathered high praise from almost all reviewers, The Boston Globe says, "The Story of Lucy Gault is a novel blessed with sorrow and inevitability, its rueful beauty a requiem for an 'Ireland of the ruins' as well as for human folly and deliverance. Few living writers are capable of such mournful depth as William Trevor, and here he has given us an evensong to time itself".