Felicia's Journey

From Publishers Weekly Trevor, long admired for his trenchant stories and novels, his subtle humor and broad compassion, retains all those virtues in his deeply absorbing new novel and adds a degree of narrative tension he has not shown before. Felicia is a poor, plain, rather simple Irish girl made pregnant by the first boy to bed her, who then promptly disappears to England, leaving no address. When she abandons her taciturn family to look for him, her only thought is to be reunited with a lover. But she meets portly, self-delighted Mr. Hilditch, catering manager at a factory in the grimy English Midlands, who shows her unexpected kindness, even helps arrange an abortion for her; after all, he's been a good friend to so many other lost girls, hasn't he? Wary of him at first, then resigned, finally increasingly anxious as she wonders what became of his other friends, Felicia picks her numb way among psychological minefields. What happens to her and to Mr. Hilditch, in the brilliantly evoked setting of dank cafes and pubs, homeless wanderers, revivalists and bus trips to stately homes, is the stuff of nightmare; not cynically created, but one born of deep understanding and piercing truth. This is a thriller lifted to the level of high art, and it should win Trevor many new admirers. BOMC selection. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal Felicia, a young Irish woman who seems doomed to a life of cooking and cleaning for her family, finds her drab existence transformed when Johnny Lysaght, a childhood friend, returns from England for a visit. After a few idyllic days, Johnny departs unexpectedly, before Felicia can ask for his address. When she discovers that she is pregnant, Felicia sets off to find him, knowing only that he works at a lawn mower factory in the Midlands. Frightened, sick, and confused by the strange accents, Felicia is befriended by a kindly older man named Hilditch, who offers her a place to sleep when her money is stolen. What she doesn't realize is that Hilditch stole the money himself, in order to force her to accept his hospitality. Trevor, whose Collected Stories was named one of the best books of 1993 by the New York Times Book Review, has written a taut psychological thriller with an unusually effective surprise ending, reminiscent of Patricia Highsmith's best work. Highly recommended. --Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch. Lib., Los Angeles Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist Trevor is revered, and rightly so, as a master of lyrical and psychologically sophisticated fiction. His prose is crystalline and his characters richly imagined, but none of his work will reverberate as strongly as this, his twentieth book. Here Trevor has slipped away from the rarefied world he has explored in the past and infiltrated territory we would usually associate with the thrillers of Hitchcock or the novels of Ruth Rendell. The story begins in a small Irish town where an innocent young girl is seduced by a rogue who claims to work at a lawn-mower factory in England. Pregnant and distraught, she runs away to find her errant lover. As soon as she arrives, she comes to the attention of Mr. Hilditch, a fastidious fat man with tiny hands who, now that mother is dead, lives alone. The enigmatic Mr. Hilditch is as interested in troubled young women as he is in food and soon contrives to assist Felicia in her quest. She reluctantly accepts a ride, then goes off on her own, but after a series of disasters, including a brief interlude with a cult of religious fanatics, Felicia ends up, once again, accepting Hilditch's kindness, although she, and we, have a very bad feeling about him. As they circle round each other like a cautious quarry and a nervous hunter, Trevor holds us rapt with curiosity and fear. All this is as creepy, brilliant, and involving as one could desire, but it is the novel's unbelievably moving conclusion that gives it wings and lifts it far, far above the ordinary, taking our breath away. Donna Seaman From Kirkus Reviews The Irish-born novelist and short-story writer (Two Lives, 1991, etc.) takes a surprising turn for the mysterious in this chilling portrait of a serial killer. It takes a while before we realize that one of the two alternating points of view here is that of a deranged man who preys on lost women. Middle-aged J.A. Hilditch, rotund catering manager for a factory lunchroom, seems a bit fussy at worst to Felicia, the Irish teenager who has run away from home to this English town north of Birmingham to find the boy who knocked her up. But Johnny Lysaght, wishing to hide his real job from the boys back home (he's in the British army), has told Felicia he works in a factory. While making her pointless search of possible workplaces, bags in tow, Felicia relives her rough departure from Ireland. With no mother to confide in, this innocent convent-school girl suffers her father's scorn and gets no help from Johnny's suspicious mother. Hilditch misleads Felicia in her search as part of his elaborate plan to render her broke and helpless, and we soon discover that he has created a complete fantasy life that includes military service and an invalid wife. His obsessive behavior grows fetishistic, part of his bizarre fantasy: Felicia is his fiancx82e, carrying his fetus. After rejection by the local settlement house, she finds herself on Hilditch's doorstep, and he encourages her to have an abortion. It doesn't take long, though, for Felicia to figure out that Hilditch's patchwork reminiscences of five previous girlfriends amount to a history of murder. She takes off for a life on the streets, finding solace and forgiveness from God in her mere survival, while Hilditch descends further into madness. Trevor's combination of the pathological and the lyrical transcends mere genre fiction: He's a master still exploring the possibilities of his craft. (Book-of-the-Month Club selection) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Read more