Trespass
In a silent valley stands an isolated stone farmhouse, the Mas Lunel. Its owner is Aramon Lunel, an alcoholic so haunted by his violent past that he's become incapable of all meaningful action, letting his hunting dogs starve and his land go to ruin. Meanwhile, his sister, Audrun, alone in her modern bungalow within sight of the Mas Lunel, dreams of exacting retribution for the unspoken betrayals that have blighted her life. Into this closed Cevenol world comes Anthony Verey, a wealthy but disillusioned antiques dealer from London. Now in his sixties, Anthony hopes to remake his life in France, and he begins looking at properties in the region. From the moment he arrives at the Mas Lunel, a frightening and unstoppable series of consequences is set in motion. Two worlds and two cultures collide. Ancient boundaries are crossed, taboos are broken, a violent crime is committed. And all the time the Cevennes hills remain, as cruel and seductive as ever.
4.3 out of 5 based on 13 reviews
|
Omniscore:
|
| Classification |
Fiction |
| Genre |
General Fiction |
| Format |
Hardback |
| Pages |
320 |
| RRP |
£17.99 |
| Date of Publication |
March 2010 |
| ISBN |
978-0701177942 |
| Publisher |
Chatto & Windus |
| |
In a silent valley stands an isolated stone farmhouse, the Mas Lunel. Its owner is Aramon Lunel, an alcoholic so haunted by his violent past that he's become incapable of all meaningful action, letting his hunting dogs starve and his land go to ruin. Meanwhile, his sister, Audrun, alone in her modern bungalow within sight of the Mas Lunel, dreams of exacting retribution for the unspoken betrayals that have blighted her life. Into this closed Cevenol world comes Anthony Verey, a wealthy but disillusioned antiques dealer from London. Now in his sixties, Anthony hopes to remake his life in France, and he begins looking at properties in the region. From the moment he arrives at the Mas Lunel, a frightening and unstoppable series of consequences is set in motion. Two worlds and two cultures collide. Ancient boundaries are crossed, taboos are broken, a violent crime is committed. And all the time the Cevennes hills remain, as cruel and seductive as ever.
Reviews
The Independent on Sunday
Simon O'Hagan
"A thoroughly engrossing psychological thriller that cries out for a film version by Claude Chabrol… Tremain's writing is both vivid and wonderfully compressed, the eye that is cast over proceedings unblinking. There is no striving for effect; such imagery as is deployed is perfectly judged, the story- telling is stripped down to its purest form, and the command of the material is total. The novel is only 250 pages long, but it packs an enormous punch – the work of a writer at the top of her game."
21/03/2010
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The Daily Mail
Michael Arditti
"Trespass has the narrative tension of a thriller, while it is filled with all the psychological acuity, descriptive detail and gentle wisdom of the finest literary fiction. The tremendous Tremain is on top form."
19/03/2010
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The Times
Jane Wheatley
"This is a terrific book: accomplished in its poised, imaginative storytelling and in its vivid, sensual rendering of landscape and character, emotion and memory."
06/03/2010
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The Sunday Telegraph
Holly Kyte
"She negotiates this genre like an old pro. The writing has clarity and intensity, coaxing us into the ambience of a quiet, thoughtful thriller. It’s not so much a case of whodunit, but how and why. The psychology is fascinating, and the spectacularly insular characters are drawn with flashes of pity and biting humour."
28/02/2010
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Times Literary Supplement
Edmund Gordon
"…she evokes rural France with a fine distribution of sensuous detail… Yet much of the tension in this compelling work, much of its obsessive, sinister atmosphere, derives from her understanding that love of landscape is not simply a reaction to external beauty, but a projection of complicated feelings and desires, which cannot always accommodate the visions of other people… That Trespass is also funny, and (especially towards the end) moving, is testament to the author's intelligence and virtuosity of her style."
12/03/2010
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The Observer
Ruth Scurr
"Tremain's intimate knowledge of the Cévenol is evident throughout Trespass... She deftly sketches the region's economic history: the decline of the silk industry, the toxic conditions of an underwear factory producing rayon girdles. But it is the sense of "wild nature", woods of holm oak, beech, chestnut and pine, with the river running through them and the threat of heavy rain hanging above, she captures so bewitchingly."
28/02/2010
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The Scotsman
Peggy Hughes
"Languorously detailed and unravelled in a manner gripping and frustrating, the book dwells in aridity, choked silence and things unspoken, making sudden flares of bloody, grotesque imagery the more unsettling… Meticulously plotted, with the musty sadness that comes of cleaving to the past, Trespass will reward your reading time despite a slow start"
23/02/2010
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The Spectator
Sebastian Smee
"Tremain describes the landscape, the houses, the entire setting of her novel with an unsentimental precision that is utterly convincing. But again and again I was arrested by her impulse to thrust our noses into her characters’ most repulsive actions, their most selfish, mean-spirited and murderous daydreams, their shocking self-absorption... at times I felt it was laid on too thickly; I felt manipulated, responding with diminishing laughter and finally indifference."
03/03/2010
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The Daily Telegraph
Jane Shilling
"Tremain is a writer of particular elegance and control, and her story unfolds from its arresting first scene to its luminous final image as gracefully as ballet. Even when describing the most abject physical and moral squalor, Tremain’s stylistic precision never falters. If a sense of strain is to be found in this novel, it is in its multiplicity of narrative threads. The stories of the peasants Audrun and Aramon and of the incomer Anthony are freighted with enough resonance to make Tremain’s fictional craft sit quite low in the water."
27/02/2010
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The Literary Review
Pamela Norris
"The scene is set for a drama of vengeful women, and Tremain expertly maintains the suspense. As one would expect from so gifted a storyteller, much more is on offer than the pleasures of detection. A novel about many forms of transgression, Trespass is also about time and memory, and the lifelong damage that selfish parents can inflict."
01/03/2010
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The Financial Times
Mark Bostridge
"She knows how to stretch (sometimes overstretch) a good yarn, and this one, with its pacy, short chapters, has an effortless ease to it. Trespass is likely to prove a hit with the beach-reading crowd this summer, even if murder aficionados may baulk at some of the mechanisms it uses to bring about the dénouement... Some of Tremain’s more faithful readers, though, may incline to the view that with this book she comes close to slumming it."
08/03/2010
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The Guardian
Alex Clark
"Insofar as Trespass sets itself to explore the nature of outsiderness and its relationship to our more nebulous yearnings, it is a successful novel, well made and written with a light touch. But it can also appear strangely underpowered, plotted too tightly to its course and prevented from straying into genuinely interesting territory. Tremain has written more freely in the past and, although this may well prove among her most commercially viable novels, it is not one of her most daring."
06/03/2010
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The Sunday Times
Lindsay Duguid
"Tremain is a writer whose observations we trust… she convinces us that a rich French couple might have “ a couple of Corots” in their country house, and that a poor farmer might have night storage heaters “heavy as standing stones”. Equally compelling are her descriptions of the suffering of her characters; not only tears, hangovers and impotence, but a pervasive shame, helpless delusions and a belief in the omens found in dreams. Trespass is full of such particular insights but in the end, imagination seems squandered on a routine plot."
14/03/2010
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