Response to "Events at Drimaghleen" by William Trevor

Before I even started reading this story, I was turned off by its title because I couldn't pronounce it. I still don't think I can, but as I began reading it, I became enthralled by it. I think it's because I'm a sucker for mysteries. About four pages in, when Mrs. McDowd finds Maureen and Mrs. Butler dead, I became hooked.  It seemed incredibly fishy to me that the police and the town are convinced that Mrs. Butler murdered Maureen, and Mrs. Butler's son murdered his mother before then taking his own life; I've seen too many episodes of Law and Order and too many crime shows to believe this. It just seemed too easy, which is why when the letter is introduced about halfway through the story, I found myself saying "I knew it."

I loved that on page five, Trevor writes a beautiful depiction of the town of Drimaghleen. It's very clever that he changes the subject completely from the murders to give the reader a sense of what this community looks like, how it's very unorthodox for a murder to occur in such a place, let alone three murders. I also love how, on the following page, he goes into great detail explaining how the McDowds have "nothing but the waste of life" to contemplate following such a terrible tragedy. That entire paragraph is filled with such beautiful language; Trevor does a wonderful job describing the emotions that come in the wake of a tragedy.

Throughout the story, I really admired Trevor's descriptions of the characters that he introduced. The language that he used gave me myriad ideas of my own on how to paint a visual picture of the characters that I create in my own stories. For example, he describes Mr. Tyler from Mrs. McDowd's point of view on page 9. She knows that there is a "seediness about him" or "a quality that city people seemed often to exude if they weren't smartly attired." This word alone is one that I would not think of when picking adjectives to describe my characters.  I love how clever he is with his diction.

I thought the ending was brilliant. Again, Trevor does a remarkable job conveying the emotions that one experiences after a tragedy, especially in the case of the mother whose daughter was murdered. I believed it was a very satisfying ending to a brilliant mystery.