Trio A novel

William Boyd, 1952-

Book - 2021

"From the award-winning, best-selling author comes a rollicking novel with a dark undertow, set around three unforgettable individuals and a doomed movie set. A producer. A novelist. An actress. It's summer 1968--a time of war and assassinations, protests and riots. While the world is reeling, our trio is involved in making a disaster-plagued, Swingin' Sixties British movie in sunny Brighton. All are leading secret lives. As the movie shoot zigs and zags, these layers of secrets become increasingly more untenable. Pressures build inexorably. The FBI and CIA get involved. Someone is going to crack--or maybe they all will. From one of Britain's best loved writers comes an exhilarating, tender novel--by turns hilarious and ...heartbreaking--that asks the vital questions: What makes life worth living? And what do you do if you find it isn't?"--

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Subjects
Genres
Black humor (Literature)
Black humor
Humorous fiction
Novels
Published
New York : Alfred A. Knopf [2021]
Language
English
Main Author
William Boyd, 1952- (author)
Edition
First American edition
Physical Description
[312] pages ; 25 cm
ISBN
9780593318232
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Boyd is well known for all-enveloping, cradle-to-grave novels (Sweet Caress, 2015) that trace the full arc of a character's life, but here he narrows the time frame to a few transformative months in the lives of three people, all of whom are associated with a film being made in Brighton, England, in 1968. In the opening three chapters, we meet Boyd's titular trio--novelist Elfrida Wing, wife of the film's director; Talbot Kydd, the film's producer; and Anny Viklund, the female lead. All three, we learn, are approaching or in the midst of personal crises. Elfrida is a blocked writer and quiet drunk, hoping to resurrect her career with a novel about the last day in Virginia Woolf's life; Talbot is a repressed gay man, unhappy in his marriage and sublimating his desires through taking photographs of attractive men; and Anny is nursing a pill addiction while attempting to shoulder the burden of too many men in her life, including her young costar and her divorced American husband, a fugitive terrorist. Boyd skilfully and with great subtlety moves from a largely comic treatment of the chaos on the film set to a sensitive portrayal of fracturing inner lives, though even the latter is rendered with a superbly Forsterian sense of tragicomedy. Boyd is a modern master, whether working on canvases large or small.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

The lives of a film producer, an actor, and a novelist converge during an ill-fated movie shoot in Boyd's madcap 16th novel (after Love Is Blind). It is 1968 and the very British Talbot Kydd is in Brighton overseeing the production. His leading lady is American ingenue Anny Viklund, and the movie is directed by the pretentious, unfaithful husband of famous writer Elfrida Wing. Talbot, secretly gay, constantly puts out fires on and off the movie set. Anny has been extorted by her terrorist ex-husband who has recently escaped from prison. And Elfrida is a raging alcoholic who can't get past the first, terrible, paragraph of her new book. As Boyd expertly unfolds his characters' stories, philosophical questions emerge: where does each of these individuals belong in history, and must they play the part expected of them? Filled with outlandish and amusing characters, including predatory talent agents and a pornography-peddling has-been actor, Boyd's novel offers its heroes paths to escape their burdens, some of which are a bit implausible, but all are fun to watch. Boyd is an exquisite stylist, and his tragicomic novel is a sublime escape. (Jan.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

Set in the summer of 1968, Boyd's novel concerns three characters: Anny Viklund, an up-and-coming American actress with a pill habit and a checkered past who is in England filming a movie; Elfrida Wing, a once-successful novelist, dubbed "the new Virginia Woolf" by the press, who assuages a decade long writer's block with a secret alcohol habit and is floundering through a failing marriage with Reggie, the film's director; and Talbot Kidd, the film's producer and repressed homosexual hesitantly coming to terms with his true nature. The narrative proceeds in a wryly comic vein with Anny falling for costar Troy, Elfrida potentially overcoming her writer's block with a novel about Virginia Woolf's last day, and Talbot meeting an attractive young scaffolder repairing his house--until Anny's former husband, Cornell Weekes, a wanted terrorist, reenters her life and the story takes a darker turn. Anny implicates herself by giving him money, and the situation soon devolves into chaos, on the set and otherwise. VERDICT With finely delineated characters and a deft comic touch, Costa Prize winner Boyd (Restless) precisely skewers the absurdity of the movie business while sending his trio of characters toward a not uniformly pleasant reckoning with truer versions of themselves.--Lawrence Rungren, Andover, MA

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

A novelist, a producer, and an actress confront their demons on and off a film set. British author Boyd's 16th novel takes place in Brighton in 1968 and revolves around the making of a film called Emily Bracegirdle's Extremely Useful Ladder to the Moon. The titular trio consists of Elfrida Wing, an alcoholic novelist who hasn't written a book in a decade and whose marriage to the film's director is hanging by a thread; Talbot Kydd, the film's producer, a closeted gay man also in an unhappy marriage; and Anny Viklund, the young American actress playing Emily, who is sleeping with her hunky co-star and continually dosing herself in classic 1960s movie-star style from an abundant pharmacopeia of pills. In addition to these three, a slew of other interesting characters fills out the corners of the novel, giving it the feel of one of Robert Altman's high-spirited ensemble films of this era. Boyd deftly juggles serious and comedic elements, generally favoring the comic, as with Elfrida's many pathetic attempts to convince herself she's getting back on her game. Having been annoyed for most of her career at being compared to Virginia Woolf, she takes it in her head to write a novel based on Woolf's last day on Earth. Over and over she writes the first paragraph--Woolf wakes up, sees a shape the sun is making on the wall (a rhomboid? a parallelogram? a diamond?), has no idea it's the last morning of her life--at which point the author pours herself a glass of vodka to celebrate, and there goes that day. Another running joke involves Talbot's being tormented by the idiotic lyrics of the song "MacArthur Park," which seems to be playing on every radio in the country. His deeper torment regarding his sexuality is highlighted by the changing mores of the period, and he's also got real problems with his movie, which has to be constantly rewritten to work around problems created by its cast. Even if someone left the cake out in the rain, it's delicious. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

1 Elfrida Wing stirred, grunted and shifted sleepily in her bed as the summer's angled morning sun brightened the room, printing a skewed rectangle of ​­lemony-​­gold light onto the ​­olive-​­green-​­flecked wallpaper close by her pillow. Elfrida, wakened by the glare inching towards her, opened her eyes and considered the wallpaper, bringing it into focus with some difficulty, trying to force her comatose brain to work, to think. As usual, on waking she felt absolutely terrible. In front of her eyes, small sharp leaves seemed to be depicted there, in a stylised manner, she ​­decided--​or were they birds? Bird shapes? Or perhaps they were simply daubs and splatters of olive green that brought leaves and birds to mind. No matter. Leaves, birds or random ​­flecks--​who really cared in the great scheme of things? She eased herself out of bed and slowly pulled on her dressing gown over her pyjamas. She slipped down the stairs as quietly as possible, wincing at each creak, hand securely gripping the banister, trying to ignore the awful ​­hill-​­cracking headache that, now she was upright, had begun thumping behind her eyes, making them bulge rhythmically in sympathy, or so she felt. Then she remembered Reggie was long gone, up at first light, off to his film. She could relax. She paused, coughed, then farted noisily and finished her descent of the staircase with careless din, striding into the kitchen and flinging open the fridge door looking for her orange juice. She scissored off the top of a carton and poured herself half a ​­tumblerful before turning to the condiment cupboard and removing the bottle of Sarson's White Vinegar that she kept there behind the pack of sugar. She added a sizeable slug to her orange juice. Sometimes she wished vodka had more flavour, like gin, but she recognised at the same time that its very neutrality was her greatest ally. Vodka and tap water in a tumbler was her daily tipple when Reggie was around. He never questioned her ​­near-​­constant thirst, luckily, and never wondered why there was always a considerable stock of Sarson's White Vinegar in the cupboard. Elfrida sat down at the kitchen table and sipped at her vodka and orange juice, finishing it quickly, and then poured herself another, feeling the buzz, the reassuring hit. Her headache was disappearing already. The title of a novel came mysteriously, unbidden, into her ​­head--​The Zigzag Man. She could almost see the cover in her mind's eye. A clever use of the two zeds; perhaps different colours for the "zig" and the "zag" . . . She poured herself more orange juice and went back to the cupboard for the Sarson's, emptying the last half-inch into the glass. Better buy another bottle of voddy, she told herself. Or two. She found her notebook and wrote the title down. The Zigzag Man by El­frida Wing. She had noted dozens of titles for potential novels, she saw, flicking back through the pages. There they were: The Summer of the Wasps, Freezy, The Acrobat, Drop Dead Gorgeous, A Week in Madrid, The Golden Rule, Dark Eulogy, Jazz, Spring Equinox, The Lightning Process, Cool Sun, Mystery in a Small Town, Estranged, Artists' Entrance, Berlin to Hamburg, The Windrow, The Riviera Gap, A Safe Onward Journey, Falling ​­Away--​title after title of unwritten novels. And now The Zigzag Man could be added to their number. Titles were the easy ​­bit--​writing the novel was the awful challenge. She sipped her juice, feeling sad, all of a sudden. It was now over ten years since her last novel had been published, she remembered ruefully: The Big Show, published in the spring of 1958. Ten long years and not a word of fiction ​­written--​just list after list of titles. She finished her juice feeling a numbness overwhelm her, tears stinging her eyes. Stop thinking about bloody novels, she told herself, angrily. Have another drink. 2 Talbot Kydd woke abruptly from his dream. In his dream he had been standing on a wide beach and a young man, naked, was walking out of the modest surf, waving at him. He sat up, still half asleep, still in a ​­dream-​­daze, taking in his surroundings. Yes, he was in a hotel, of course, not at home. Another ​­hotel--​­sometimes he thought he had spent half his life in hotels. Anyway, he didn't really care: the room was generously large and the bathroom functioned perfectly. It was all he needed for his stay. London was close, that was the main thing. Now he swung his legs out of the bed and stood up, slowly, blinking, and rubbed his face, hearing his alarm go off. Six o'clock. What an absurd time to start your day, he thought, as he always did when his impossible job made these demands. He stood, stretched carefully, raising his arms above his head for a few seconds as if trying to touch the ceiling, hearing joints crack satisfyingly, and then pottered through to the bathroom. As he lay in his bath, steam rising, he thought again of the dream he'd been having. Was it a dream or was it a memory? Pleasingly erotic, anyway, and about a young man, pale and limber . . . Or was it Kit, his brother? Or was it someone he'd actually photographed, perhaps, one of his models? He could remember the body but not the face. He tried to recover more details but the ​­dream-​­memories wouldn't coalesce and the young man remained immovably ​­generic--​alluring, slim, unidentifiable. He shaved, he ​­dressed--​classic ​­charcoal-​­grey suit, white shirt, his East Sussex Light Infantry regimental ​­tie--​and ran his two brushes through the ​­near-​­white wings of hair above his ears. The bathroom ceiling lights gleamed brightly on his freckled baldness. Bald at ​­twenty-​­five, his father had once observed: I do hope you're my child. It had been an unkind remark to make to a young man ​­self-​­conscious about his early hair loss, Talbot thought, recalling his father, who had dense ​­straw-​­coloured hair, driven back from his forehead in tight waves, like a man facing into a gale. But then kindness was not a virtue you'd ever associate with Peverell Kydd so perhaps the slur was evidence of genuine suspicion . . . He took the stairs down to the dining room and breakfast, expunging thoughts of the old bastard from his mind. Peverell Kydd, dead two decades now. Good. Fuck him and his shade. He was almost alone in the dining room of the Grand as it was so early. A ​­middle-​­aged couple in tweeds; a plump man with hair down to his shoulders, smoking, were his three companions. Talbot ordered and consumed his habitual kipper, drank four cups of tea, ate two slices of white toast and raspberry jam, all the while idly watching a rhomboid of sunlight on the maroon carpet slowly turn itself into an isosceles triangle. A sunny ​­day--​perfect for Beachy Head. He had nearly finished his fifth cup of tea when his line producer, Joe Swire, appeared and ordered a pot of coffee from the pretty young waitress with the ​­port-​­wine birthmark on her neck. Why did he notice such smirches, Talbot wondered, and not celebrate the young waitress's guileless beauty instead? And here was Joe, opposite him, a handsome young man whose good looks were marred by poor teeth, ​­soft and snaggled. "Break it to me gently, Joe," Talbot said as Joe consulted his clipboard with the day's schedule and business. "The Applebys have postponed," Joe began. "Excellent." "But they've asked for another copy of Troy's contract." "Why? They have it. They countersigned it." "I don't know, boss. And Tony's off sick." "Which Tony?" "The DoP." "What's wrong with him?" "Touch of flu." "Again? What'll we do?" "Frank will cover." "Frank?" "The camera operator." "That ​­Frank--​right. Is RT happy?" "Seems to be." They chatted on for a while, going over the schedule and anticipating potential problems. Talbot realised that he ​­over-​­relied on Joe's expertise to ensure the film ran smoothly. He didn't enjoy the pettifogging ​­nuts-​­and-​­bolts business of making a film, it wasn't his forte. Which is why he hired someone like Joe, of course, to manfully shoulder what really should have been his burden. Talbot knew he should try harder and show more interest, such as remembering people's names. It was one of Peverell Kydd's salient pieces of advice. If you remember their names and what they do they'll think you're a ​­god--​or a ​­demi-​­god, at least. As with most of his father's proffered wise counsel Talbot was reluctant to take it. Whatever you choose to do in your life, my boy, don't, repeat, don't have anything to do with the film business, you're absolutely not the right type of person, so his father had declared. And yet here he ​­was--​a film producer with more than a dozen films to his name. Just like his ​­father--​although not a legend, definitely not, and certainly not as rich. Talbot sat back and exhaled. Why did he feel sour and cantankerous today? he wondered. The sun was shining, they were in week five, close to halfway through the filming schedule; there had been crises, of course, but nothing calamitous. He was wealthy enough, contentedly married, in good health, his children grown up and thriving, after their fashion . . . So what was chafing at him? "You all right, boss?" Joe asked, as if he could sense Talbot's darkening mood. "Yes, yes. All's well with the world. Shall we go to work?" Excerpted from Trio: A Novel by William Boyd All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.