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Trio

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Trio

By: William Boyd
Narrated by: Hannah Arterton
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

A producer. A novelist. An actress.

It is summer in 1968, the year of the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. There are riots in Paris and the Vietnam War is out of control. While the world is reeling our three characters are involved in making a Swingin' Sixties movie in sunny Brighton.

All are leading secret lives. Elfrida is drowning her writer's block in vodka; Talbot, coping with the daily dysfuntion of making a film, is hiding something in a secret apartment; and the glamorous Anny is wondering why the CIA is suddenly so interested in her.

But the show must go on and, as it does, the trio's private worlds begin to take over their public ones. Pressures build inexorably - someone's going to crack. Or maybe they all will.

From one of Britain's best loved writers comes an exhilarating, tender novel that asks the vital questions: what makes life worth living? And what do you do if you find it isn't?
_______________________________________________

PRAISE FOR WILLIAM BOYD

'The ultimate in immersive fiction . . . magnificent' Sunday Times

'A finely judged performance: a deft and resonant alchemy of fact and fiction, of literary myth and imagination' Guardian on Love is Blind

'William Boyd has probably written more classic books than any of his contemporaries' Daily Telegraph

'Simply the best realistic storyteller of his generation' Sebastian Faulks

© William Boyd 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

 20th Century Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction

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Critic reviews

A middle-aged film producer, a novelist with writer's block and a glamorous young actress come together to make a Swinging Sixties movie in this jaunty page-turner. But everyone is living a double life. Even names can't be taken on trust. Full of neat phrases and quirkily funny scenes, it's an elating read
What could be more reassuring in troubling times than a new William Boyd novel? Trio is immensely readable, its descriptions full of light and colour, its humour spot on, its mood a perfect mix of frolicsome and melancholy

An absorbing novel about lives spiralling out of control and the drastic measures required to right them
The characters are wonderfully written and I loved escaping to the gossipy world of the film set
Boyd keeps the plot racing along, yet for all the twists, the real delight is in William Boyd's wry portrait of a bygone age . . . Boyd's usual sure touch is evident throughout this tender, gently comic work
One of our best contemporary storytellers. . . Trio embraces comedy, tragedy and redemption. It succeeds impressively because of its dramatic, often sensational, revelations
I am a huge fan of William Boyd and the tender way he writes about the flaws and frailties of his characters. Trio is his best novel in years
Reading William Boyd's Trio is like shrugging on a worn leather jacket on the first brisk morning of autumn: cosy but cool . . . He has enormous fun with the worlds - and egos - of page and screen
Enormous fun . . . Boyd's characters are vibrant, his prose elegant, comedy excellent: the result is a book that's compassionate and compelling
Boyd's writing is as fluent as ever but it's the ideas pulsing beneath the surface that distinguish Trio
All stars
Most relevant
reader was unable to pronounce frank words and names or Lytton Strachey's name. this spoilt the audiobook

reader

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William Boyd's writing is superb and once again he has come up with a multi-faceted plot to entertain me. I wish I had bought the book rather than the audio because I would simply have revelled in the words, rather than wincing at the mispronounciations.
Previous reviewer have been harsh about the reader, Hannah Arterton. I found her voice pleasant and she captured the characters well but as with many audiobooks, the pronunciation of almost every French word made me cringe. I find it mystifying that a language so closely linked with our own is a stranger for most voice actors.and I also wonder how these audiobooks are produced, does the actor simply sit with a tape recorder and read the book in total, with no help? Incidentally, the reviewer who sounded off about Cap Ferrat was wrong. This was indeed Cap Ferret, west of Bordeaux, best to check these things out before whingeing.
It took me a while to engage with the characters in Trio. I find it is often the case with William Boyd, he gives us flawed, complex characters and gradually unreels the layers. Certainly by the end I was anxious for each one of them and I was relieved that there was a good outcome for at least one of them. I thought the portrayal of the alcoholic woman was excellent, William is able to get right into the female psyche.

Superb writing

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I love William Boyd. This book was cleverly written and interesting following a number of characters in parallel. It took a while to get into the story but once I did I enjoyed its twists and turns. The narration however was very poor. When I first listened to it I became convinced it was an automated voice , the emphasis on the words in the sentences was bizarre and meant they didn’t flow and the pronunciation of French names appalling , the wise I’ve heard. I nearly gave up but a friend whose read the book said it was worth it. I managed to overcome it but the dreadful grammar and sentence structure really irritated me. I’ve no idea why this would be allowed. I even wondered if it was meant to be ironic or clever but if it was it was lost on me.

Interesting story but poor narration

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I enjoyed this book , in fact each story ended too soon and too sharply. if it were a film I'd want to rewrite the endings. all 3 would end with the desires fulfilled instead of one hidden in a nunnery, one dead, and one still in hope of a bit of gay sex. they should have had it all

3 lives, each having the wrong ending.

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William Boyd is great story teller. Let down by a reader whose French in non-existent and has not been edited.

So badly edited.

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