Cassie McCullagh

But then I felt like I was sort of in the hands of somebody who was really, like he really knew what he was doing.

He knew how to build up this world and then leave us somewhere a little bit confused.

Or ambiguous rather.

You know, it's slightly confusing, but it's about a woman who... So she works in a bank and Ravenswood is an older gentleman and she knows he's got a lot of money in that account.

And he's a really totally dodgy character.

Yes.

And there's another one that I really like called The Crippled Man.

And these two itinerant workers who all the people who encounter them presume that they're Polish because there was a whole influx of Polish labourers into Ireland.

In fact, they're not from Poland.

But they're confused about this man with a disability living in this little house and

the woman he lives with, there's something going on with their relationship.

And again, it's all ambiguity and miscommunication.

And I came to really enjoy what he did with that.

So I reckon give it a break, read him again when you haven't been reading experimental black American writing.

And also he's much more conventional.

I mean, he's using those conventions.

He's doing it with assurance and sort of elegantly, I think.

And that's William Trevor's Last Stories, published by Viking Penguin.

Okay, as we sit here and I'm looking at the three of you, we are surrounded by a huge pile of books and I've lost track of how many particular short stories we've talked about, how many I've read in the last week or so.

Has it made you think differently in any way, Rowena, about what short fiction is or what it is you look for with short fiction?