I thought the writing here was great, and I really enjoyed the very evocative snapshot of life in Belfast in the 1970s. But for whatever reason, I just wasn’t convinced by the central love story, meaning that I didn’t get a real sense of why these two people were apparently in love with each other. Halfway through the book, I realized that this reminded me of the central romantic relationship in Conversations with Friends—or at least in the TV adaptation of that book (which I have not read myself). I hate-watched Conversations with Friends, never buying the supposedly passionate affair between “Sadsack” and “The Married Guy” (as I referred to them), and not really caring what happened to any of them. While I did care about what happened to the people in Trespasses, I cared most about the peripheral people, who seemed more vividly drawn than the main characters. I seem to be in the minority here, but it all kind of left me cold.

Further reading…