No Tremain novel is like any other. This one is much darker but no less compelling than the celebrated The Road Home." - Library Journal My Review: Two pairs of aging siblings, all damaged goods from various sorts of parental abuse and neglect, collide in one of France's most beautiful areas...the Cévennes mountain range...and manage to make a complete hash of their own, their friends', and even perfect strangers' lives while imagining themselves to be acting in accord with the highest and best principles of mankind. Nothing good comes of anyone's best-intentioned acts because no one has learned what good intentions look like. Tremain explores the results of repression and suppression to their logical extremes in this book. Tremain's present-day story wittily revives Robert Louis Stevenson's fears: perhaps foreigners still have good reason to arm themselves when they venture into the wilds of the Cévenol.

Rose Tremain - Wikipedia

Along the way, Tremain gives us a history lesson of the Cévennes. She tells us about the decline of the once thriving silk industry, the poor working conditions Audrun once endured in the underwear factory in Ruasse, the way the Cévenol people never hoped for more than what they already had. But it’s the sense of isolation, of ever-present menace that really captures the spirit of the area and adds to the darkness of this book. The woods of holm oak and beech and chestnut and pine are lovely, but Tremain never lets us forget that its loveliness is fraught with danger.Trespass works best through its silences; we feel horribly, for example, for Kitty, who is never allowed to give free rein to her jealousy of Anthony's relationship with Veronica, and who must cope, to boot, with being a rotten painter. Similarly, the minor characters at the edges of the novel – the mayor who lectures Kitty and Veronica on their profligate use of water in the garden, or the Parisian schoolgirl whose alienation from her new rural home tops and tails the story – provide an articulate commentary on our relationship to our surroundings. "They both knew that it was borrowed," writes Tremain of Kitty and Veronica's fragile sense of belonging. "Because if you left your own country, if you left it late, and made your home in someone else's country, there was always a feeling that you were breaking an invisible law, always the irrational fear that, one day, some 'rightful owner' would arrive to take it all away, and you would be driven out . . ." Taut ... full of suspense ... above all 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 haging above, that she captures so bewitchingly ... this is a dark book * Observer *

Trespass - Penguin Books UK Trespass - Penguin Books UK

She is a historical novelist who approaches her subjects "from unexpected angles, concentrating her attention on unglamorous outsiders." [4] In prison Aramon is treated for ulcers, makes a few friends, and finally approaches something close to happiness for the first time in years. One day Audrun decides to visit him, bringing him a branch of white cherry blossom which they both remember as a positive memory from when they were children. Aramon finally apologizes to Audrun for his abuse. The only quibble I have with this book is a maddening habit of Tremain’s to write "and now he, Anthony" or "now that she, Kitty...." when we know who’s being written about. The reference is distracting. Even though grammatically correct, this habit really got on my nerves and it reminded me of something a lesser writer would do, not someone of Tremain’s status. Thomson, William (1819–1890), archbishop of York". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (onlineed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi: 10.1093/ref:odnb/27330. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)Tonkin, Boyd (5 March 2010). "Journeys home: Rose Tremain reflects on the past and her present life writing in the south of France". The Independent . Retrieved 9 May 2014. Cain, Sian (22 November 2016). "Costa book award 2016 shortlists dominated by female writers". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077 . Retrieved 11 May 2019.