Trespass: From the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Gustav Sonata

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Two things drew me to Rose Tremain’s latest novel, Trespass. One was the fact that it was set in the Cévennes mountains of the Central Massif (south central France, a region I know well), and the second is that it was described as being “very dark.” I love France and have spent many happy years there, and I love well-written “dark” books. Novelist Rose Tremain appointed as new UEA chancellor". BBC News. 14 April 2013 . Retrieved 9 May 2014. Rose Tremain must surely be one of the most versatile novelists writing today... The scene-setting opening is languorous and beautiful, giving full rein to Tremain's descriptive gifts... a disturbing tale and one rich in detail * Daily Express *

Trespass by Rose Tremain | Fiction | The Guardian

Trespass is a 2010 novel by British author Rose Tremain. The novel is set in a small town in Cévennes and concerns two pairs of mixed gender dysfunctional adult siblings, one French and one English who become entangled in a dispute over property. They both knew it was borrowed: the view of hills; even the sunsets and the clarity of the stars. Somewhere they knew it didn't belong to them. 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..." Audrun Lunel is a slow child, youngest of her family, and probably not the daughter of the man who raised and molested her, as she was born very shortly after the end of WWII and her mother was alone...well, anyway, incest is about more than genetics. Her brother, at the very least her half-brother that is, molested her too, all after her saintly mama dies. This is a story I simply do not want to read again, ever, since I survived incestuous abuse by my mother and don't care to see the culturally acceptable image of men as abusers continue unchallenged. After obtaining her English degree in 1967, author Tremain worked for some time in the British Printing Corporation. She wrote a few nonfiction works based on sufferings of women before releasing her debut novel, the 1976 book called Sadler’s Birthday. In this book, Tremain described the story of an aged butler, who lives a lonely life in the house that his former employers left him. The book not only became successful, but also established the reputation of Tremain as a chronicler of loneliness and despair. In her second book, Tremain has described the life story of a middle-aged woman, who goes through a turmoil and approaches her former teacher for solace. Likewise, Tremain has explored the relationships between an older writer and her interviewing journalist in her third book.

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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 . . ."

Trespass: From the Sunday Times bestselling author of The

The novel received nearly unanimous critical praise. The Globe and Mail praised Tremain as "a writer in command of her craft." [1] The New York Times declared Tremain's style "authoritative". [2] The Guardian had some reservations about the novel but complimented it as "a successful novel, well made and written with a light touch". [3] Film adaptation [ edit ] Rose Tremain was born Rosemary Jane Thomson on 2 August 1943 in London to Viola Mabel Thomson and Keith Nicholas Home Thomson. [2] Her paternal great-grandfather is William Thomson, who was Archbishop of York from 1862 to 1890. [3]If a sense of strain is to be found in this novel, it is in its multiplicity of narrative threads....Add to them the emotional baggage of Veronica and Kitty’s uneasy relationship, and of little Melodie, and the whole enterprise sometimes seems to risk foundering. It doesn’t, of course. Tremain steers her story towards its redemptive conclusion so deftly it seems churlish to feel that something less poised might have been more moving." - The Telegraph (UK) She was educated at Francis Holland School, Crofton Grange School, the Sorbonne (1961–1962) and the University of East Anglia (BA, English Literature). [4] She later went on to teach creative writing at the University of East Anglia from 1988 to 1995, and was appointed Chancellor in 2013. [5] Leavitt, David (22 October 2010). "Place of Last Resort". The New York Times . Retrieved 21 June 2018.

Trespass by Rose Tremain | Goodreads Trespass by Rose Tremain | Goodreads

I absolutely loved Rose Tremain's historical fiction novel The Colour when I read it three years ago. She's an author whose I have meant to read more of and finally got around to this week. Trespass, for me, didn't have the immersive power of The Colour, but is still a very well written novel with an intriguing mystery at its heart. It is set in southern France, an area that Tremain knows well, and her expertise comes across in the writing. I loved her evocation of the lonely rural community and the ties of local people to the land they have farmed in the same way for generations. The strained relationship between siblings Audrun and Aramon Lunel - and the dark reason for this - is beautifully portrayed and I think I would have been much happier with Trespass had Tremain focused on this French story. Instead the novel is split between the Lunels and a rich English brother and sister, Veronica and Anthony Verey, one of whom is already living in France and the other who decides to emigrate nearby - possibly to Mas Lunel. Readers of Rose Tremain's 11th novel who find themselves inspired to rush off to the French countryside she lovingly conjures will hardly be able to claim they haven't heard the warnings of "buyer, beware" that nestle between the vivid descriptions of brooding hilltops and babbling streams, particularly if they feel inclined to take their chequebooks with them and acquire a prime piece of real estate. In her first novel since the Orange prize-winning The Road Home, which told the story of an eastern European's journey through a bewildering and inhospitable contemporary Britain, she turns to the mountains and villages of the Cévennes to bring us a different vision of cultural collision and the experience of the outsider.

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Although none of the characters (the main characters also include Veronica's self-centered partner, Kitty, a bad landscape painter) are likable -- indeed, some are quite repugnant -- all are well realized, and the story hurtles on, extremely readable without ever being facile. It has the gripping nature (and several elements) of a mystery or thriller, but it has a surprisingly touching ending that takes it quite out of genre fiction. In atmospheric menace it reminded me a great deal of Highsmith. (One of the best parts is the atmospheric role played by the rural South of France landscape -- the underbelly of this tourist heaven is on full display). I am just not this person. I have moved house about three or four times in the last six months. I have no actual career to speak of. My laptop resides on the chair, while dirty plates reside on my desk. I sit on my bed and most of my stuff is permanently in boxes as I will be moving again. I pay my rent in cash and there is an interesting stain on my wall that’s either wine or blood. I buy books in poundshop or sometimes I find them on the sidewalk. I'm always a few years behind with what I'm supposed to be reading. I go from hermit phases when I try to leave the house as little as possible to party-binges. Sometimes I’m very rude to my best friends and often when people call me to ask how it is going I pretend it’s bad connection and hang up. Some people think I’m loveable, personable and sweet but they don’t know me very well. This book and I were just not a good match. It was just too neat. Between 1988 and 1995, Tremain was employed as a teacher of creative writing at East Anglia University and in 2013, she was appointed its Chancellor. Author Tremain has held multiple life partners over the course of her life. First, she was married to Jon Tremain, with whom she has a daughter named Eleanor, born one year after the marriage. Eleanor chose the career path of acting. Tremain’s marriage with Jon Tremain lasted for only five years. After that, she married a theater director named Jonathan Dudley in 1982. Her second marriage lasted for nine years. Since 1992, Tremain has been living with Richard Holmes, although they have not officially married. Tremain and Richard live in Norfolk. The writing influences of Tremain include authors like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and William Golding. As a novelist of historical fiction, she likes to approach her subjects from different angles and concentrate her attention on the glamorous outsiders. In 2009, Tremain donated one of her short stories to the Ox-Tales project, which is 4 collections of stories penned by 38 UK novelists. Her story was featured in the Earth collection. The novel is organized by chapters that each end with a revelation and begin with renewed suspense. It's a very literary take on the Victorian serial. All these revelations fall out of the story with the same sort of logic as a sweater unraveling. Each pull leads to another in an unstoppable line. Each one adding just a little more weight, a little more unhappiness, a little more ugliness until the fabric is gone and all is revealed.

Book Review - Trespass - By Rose Tremain - The New York Times

Ron Rash is renowned for his writing about Appalachia, but his latest book, The Caretaker, begins ... As would be expected, all of the main characters in “Trespass” have either trespassed on the rights of others or are planning to do so. Kitty, who realizes that the deep bond between Anthony and Veronica was formed long before she and Veronica even met struggles with the once carefree relationship she and her lover shared, a relationship that is now facing destruction from outside forces. "Doesn’t every love need to create for itself its own protected space? And if so, why don’t lovers understand better the damage trespass can do?" As to the title, not too far in, I came across this: Doesn’t every love need to create for itself its own protected space? And if so, why don’t lovers understand better the damage trespass can do? We traditionally think of "lovers" as sexual love. The context of the above may have been that, but I think Tremain meant it in the broader sense: those who love another. There are many references to parental love, and, as the characters are siblings, that kind of love also. So, Trespass.

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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. Another form of trespass lies buried in the bitter history between Aramon and Audrun. After their adored mother's death, Aramon was encouraged by their father to join in abusing Audrun, the household's one remaining female member. Trespass, in the sense of sin or wrong-doing, has poisoned the atmosphere in the Mas Lunel ever since. Starving and neglected hunting dogs, penned close to the ruined house, are symptomatic of the desperate squalor that has overcome Aramon, unable to come to terms with his disgusting past.