William Boyd is one of my favorite English contemporary writers and “Any Human Heart” and “Sweet Caress” are on my shelf of all-time favorite books. Needless to say, I was really looking forward to reading his latest work “Trio” which is set 1968 Brighton but to my great disappointment I found myself dragging through the read. The book did not have me fully engaged most of the time; after page 180 my interest picked up somewhat but “Trio” is one of his weaker books in my opinion, I hate to say this of an author I really like.
Three protagonists are at the center of the novel, they are all connected through a film project that is shot in Brighton during the swinging sixties. My main problem with the novel was that I never really felt connected to any of the main characters, particularly true of the female characters who all come across as weak and with serious mental issues. Anny Viklund is the star of the film, a beautiful actress with a string of men at her disposal but currently having an affair with Troy, her co-star in the film. Elfrida Wing, a successful writer with a 10 year writer’s block and a serious alcohol problem is the wife of film director Reggie who is constantly having love interests on the side. Interestingly the best developed and most interesting character I found was the male figure, Talbot, the cunning producer of the film who like Anny and Elfrida, is hiding private secrets and conducting a separate life hidden from everyone else working on the film. His role in the book was the one that made me want to continue reading when I became disengaged.
For those of you who like me love William Boyd’s work I would say read it and form your own opinion but I hope his next book is one that has my full enthusiasm again. What does have my full approval however is the great cover, love it!

This multi character novel provides a slice of a moment in time. As usual, Boyd's prose is witty and compelling but I wasn't entirely sure that the story was as good as some of his previous novels. Overall, it was ok.

Don’t know how William Boyd does it - even with a subject which holds little interest for this reviewer, the writing is so wonderful that the story carried me along and I was completely involved with the characters, after a rather slow start. The Trio of the title is a young film actress, a producer and a novelist, with the story set in 1968 Brighton. It’s difficult to say much about the plot without including spoilers, but even with an unpromising subject matter, the narrative flows brilliantly, with the characters coming alive and the settings becoming visual in their brilliant descriptions and clarity. If you happen to have an interest in the film industry as well, this is the book for you!

It's the late 60s and the trio in question include an actress, Anny Viklund; a film producer, Talbot Kydd; and novelist, Elfrida Wing. Anny and Talbot are working together in Brighton whilst Elfrida is loosely connected through Reggie, her husband, who is directing the film. As you would expect the writing of this book is superb. Great insight, here, into the manifest pitfalls and the diplomacy required to make a film. Lots of horse trading and ego soothing makes for brilliant dialog. Hand in hand with cajoling actors and script writers to fly blind in order to make the fruits of diplomacy look intended - excellent stuff.

Of the characters I couldn't really form a connection to any of them but I found Elfrida enchanting in a disconnected, drunken way. Talbot was next highest on the level of esteem I felt but only in the way you might feel for a co-worker you pass in the halls and know well enough to smile and say hello to but not much else. Anny didn't register for me at all. She felt as shallow as you may expect an actress to be.

As beautifully written as this novel was, I didn't feel compelled to see this book through. There just wasn't a drive on my part to invest in the story to examine how the events unfolded. Elfrida's arch was unexpected while, conversely, Anny's seemed rather pointless. Standing back I can see Trio is well crafted but populated with bits and bobs of little to no interest to me. Perhaps that's the point and this story is meant to reflect the fruitlessness of the entertainment industry - lots of effort for minimal returns and no real substance?

Boyd is a great writer and I have loved many of his books in the past, but unfortunately Trio just didn't work for me and I couldn't get into it. It felt a bit of a slog.

This story did not resonate with me as much as I had hoped it would, having been a teenager at the time it is set, in 1968. I found it difficult to connect with the main characters, as I didn’t find them likeable in the least. Sometimes they were almost stereotypical in their speech and behaviour, which wasn’t quite what I expected from this author.
The writing is beyond reproach, as I would expect. I’m just disappointed that the storyline did not engage me more. However I am sure it will appeal to other readers as the theme of movie-making is fascinating in so many ways.
My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my advance copy of this title.

Set in 1968 against the background of filming a movie in Brighton we follow the lives of three primary characters who each face a very real crisis in their lives. How they deal with these seminal events is revealing, tragic and unexpected. Whilst Boyd's writing ensures we engage with his characters I might argue there are rather too many of them, which results in the odd unnecessary diversion. As a result some of the jigsaw pieces don't connect as smoothly as I expect - perhaps a little trimming here and there is required. But nonetheless Trio is very enjoyable to read and the ingenuity of the movie makers, in working round the catastrophic problems that arise, kept my attention right to the end.

It's the Summer of 1968 and a disparate group of characters have landed in Brighton to make a film. Amongst them are three at a crossroads in their lives. Anny, the glamorous American filmstar having an affair with her co-star as well as a French philosopher but chased by the FBI as her terrorist ex-husband has absconded. Elfrida, an alcoholic novelist who has published nothing for ten years but is suddenly inspired by the tragic end to the life of Virginia Woolf. Talbot, the filmmaker who hides a guilty secret as he lives an alternative life in London. For all three the summer will force changes for good or ill.
Boyd is a fantastic writer about the human condition and this book is no exception. It took me a while to find the rhythm but once I did I started to really feel for the characters. I found Anny's ending the least satisfying as it jarred a little with the character developed over the course of the book, but it made sense in the bigger picture of the three main individuals - three different escapes. Having said all that, it's still a terrific book!

A good outing from William Boyd but not as well paced as some previous novels. I found it a little long in some parts.

Set in 1968 this follows the lives of three main characters – Annie Vikland, an American actress, Elfrida Wing, an alcoholic author and Talbot King, a film producer. These three characters are linked by a film called Emily Bracegirdle’s Extremely Useful Ladder to the Moon. Talbot is producing the film, Annie is the leading actress and Elfrida is married to the director. The filming takes place in Brighton and this is where most of the plot takes place. As usual with William Boyd books, there are many references to historical events that happened in 1968 such as the Paris riots and also references to homosexuality which had recently been legalised.
The three characters all have a trace of tragedy about them. Elfrida is deeply unhappy, hence her alcoholism. She has not written a book for years and when she is inspired to write about Virginia Woolf she can only write the opening paragraph, which she does over and over again and always in a drunken stupor. Her husband, Reggie Tipton is having an affair and he and Elfrida rarely seem to meet or even communicate. Talbot is a closet homosexual and has a wife and children as was probably quite common in the 60s. He is a good man although rather weak and gets taken for a ride by a number of people in the story. Annie had a brief marriage to a man who is now on the run from the FBI which has disastrous consequences for her. She is also an addict but this time to barbiturates. She embarks on an affair with the lead male Troy Blaze who really cares about Annie but she is also involved with a Frenchman called Jacques Soldat who lives in Paris.
This book has a number of sub-plots but as usual Boyd’s writing draws you in. I could recommend a number of his novels and he uses a number of different styles showing true imagination and flare. The references to the 60’s felt authentic and reminded me of the distance we have travelled since that decade. Another triumph for William Boyd.
Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me an ARC of this book.

William Boyd is the author of one of my favourite books, Any Human Heart, so I was delighted to get Trio to review. The trio referred to in the title are three people involved in the making of a film in Brighton. Boyd is an eclectic author who has covered a wide range of subjects in his forty or so years of writing.

Trio didn't work for me. I found it unbearably slow at the beginning and I didn't find the characters or the story convincing. It doesn't put me off reading further Boyd books however because I usually love them. This one just wasn't for me. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Like Jonathan Coe (Mr Wilder and Me), William Boyd has chosen this autumn to write about the making of a film and, coincidentally, both films seem to represent a similar end of the road for the great days of filmmaking. Talbot Kydd is William Boyd’s producer and the film’s locations are set around Beachy Head which makes for an attractive location but everything else seems to be in a permanent state of crisis.

Talbot spends more time fire-fighting than filmmaking. His director, the self-styled Rodrigo Tipton does most of the filming when he is not trying to change the plans, alter the script, seduce the writer or cope with stars who don’t want to work together.

Talbot is married to Naomi but it’s almost a marriage of convenience where they maintain their distance and much of the film is about Talbot trying to come to terms at the end of the 1960s with the changes in the law about homosexuality and his own covert leanings in that direction. Rodrigo’s wife, Elfrida, is a failing novelist and alcoholic trying to sort out her own life and exorcise her own demons.

Another significant character is Anna Viklund, the star of the film who gets into trouble because of her estranged husband who is on the run after being imprisoned for terrorist activities. Then, there are the financial games being played around the edges of the film by Talbot’s business partner. It is a complex and interwoven plot but that is how William Boyd likes to work, on a large canvas with plenty of detail and collateral description. There’s some nice evocation of the period along the way.

In the end, and frankly against the odds, the film gets made and the loose ends in the plot come to their various conclusions. There are winners and losers but there is also the sense that the characters have had to come up against -and face up to -the kind of people that they actually are rather than hiding behind celluloid and fakery. Clearly, for William Boyd, the late 1960s were a time when you had to stop pretending, and when frothy romance was replaced by gritty realism.

Trio is an entertaining, multi-layered story and if it isn’t William Boyd at his best he can still tell a good yarn. It is well worth a read.

This is the second delightful film-based novel I've read in a couple of weeks, the other one being Jonathan Coe's 'Mr Wilder and Me.' It's 1978 and the students have been rioting in Paris but Britain is its usual self, plodding along with its dingy pubs, brilliant literary past and inexplicably shonky film industry. The story is driven by Talbot Kydd, a man with two names and two lives - during 'a good war' he realised his genuine feelings for men, which he still enjoys despite having a wife and two children in suburban London. Elfrida Wing is a novelist, real name Jennifer Tipton, who drinks strong liquor out of a Sarson's vinegar bottle and obsesses about the last day of Virginia Woolf, turning her life into a cross between The Hours and Withnail and I. Anny Viklund is an American actress who made a bad marriage to a terrorist, and the bleak ending of her story is certainly a key-change in a book that includes some of the funniest lines and most irresistible comedy set pieces I've seen since, well, Jonathan Coe's book. I've already bought it for at least one person's Christmas gift and recommend it unreservedly - I love these two new works from writers who could so easily become ponderous, but instead show more lightness and nimbleness than many other younger writers.

Set in 1968, this novel revolves around the making of a British film at a time when big changes are taking place around the world and old restrictions are beginning to relax. The trio of the title are all connected with the film- Talbot is the producer and veteran of the film industry, Anny is the beautiful and famous young star, while Elfrida, a once successful novelist, is the long-suffering wife of the director. All have their secrets and anxieties. Talbot has repressed his sexuality all his life, but begins to see a different way to be. Anny, fragile and reliant on unsuitable men, copes with success by popping pills. Elfrida has suffered from writer’s block for years, and her inspiration only stretches to promising book titles, while her husband indulges in infidelities and leaves her alone for long stretches. The problem with having three main characters is that we do not get to know any of them very well, and so with the possible exception of Talbot they lack substance and, along with other less central characters, often seem more like stereotypes than real people. Boyd’s writing is always a pleasure to read, and some of the scenes around the shooting of the film and the associated subplots are very amusing, but overall it lacks the power and memorable quality of many of Boyd’s previous works.

This was a slow burn and needed tenacity from the reader to get to grips with. However, it was worth the effort and I ended up enjoying the book, although not up there with the best of William Boyd, I felt.
The story covers the film industry in the 60’s and Boyd captures the era well, if some of the humour appears dated, I suspect it is purposefully done by Boyd. He focusses on three main protagonists but includes, sometimes in too much detail, the people they come into contact with. For example, the side stories of Dorian Villiers et al did not add much, I felt. The main protagonists are beautifully drawn – the tragic stories of Anny Viklund, Elfrida Wing and Talbot Kydd are woven in expertly into the plot. Characters all have two identities and names – Eflrida becomes Jennifer Tipton, Reggie =Rodrigo, Troy=Nigel and in many ways the book is about identity and who we portray to the world.
The writing is, as ever from Boyd, wonderful “It wasn’t a lot to go on but he would settle for that. He closed his eyes and opened them. Yes, it was the same old world…”
While not my favourite book by William Boyd, I enjoyed it and thank Netgalley and the publishers for a copy.

This follows three characters connect we d by a film that is being shot in Brighton in the late sixties.
It's a slow start but I was really invested in the characters by the end.

Quite a slow start for me, this novel did eventually repay tenacity and a determination to get beyond the rather stereotypical characters in their separate pods. Set in the 1960s British film business, we followed the snapshot glimpses of Elfrida, writer and alcoholic wife of womanising Reggie, the director of the film; troubled US starlet, Anny, shored up by a new relationship whilst drowning in the dregs of her failed marriage; and Talbot, the beleaguered producer, whose complicated personal and business dealings threaten to bring down the film and his ostensibly comfortable life. The main problem for me was feeling engaged or interested in the generally unlikeable characters, let alone the predictable machinations of the plot, although by the end, I had started to warm to them in their extremities and to want to know their fate. A rather disappointing effort from this usually intriguiging and powerful author, but I look forward to his next project, as his writing is always worth hanging onto, however inconsistent the results.

William Boyd never fails to impress Set in the late 60's during the shooting of a film in Brighton, Boyd captures the spirit and mores of the times. His characters are engaging in their unique ways. The roles and snapshot of life on a film set are spot on. An easy read.

Trio by William Boyd is a phenomenal book that deals with people in and surrounding the film industries in the mid to late 60’s. The mood, setting and characters are brilliantly captured within this snapshot of a bygone era.

Trio’s plot is exciting and moves at a good pace with very interesting twists and turns but very much settles into a realistic approach. What starts out seemingly normal soon starts to unravel and the scratching beneath the surface reveals a cast of characters with plenty of drama which soon starts to spill out. Setting this against the backdrop of an English film being shot in Brighton is extremely ingenious and captures the reader’s imagination.

The characters are very strongly written and there is enough pathos with each that the reader is generally interested in what happens to them. The three dimensional characters feel like they are breathing and living off the page. Boyd has even been able to capture their dialogue to seem natural and realistic. It was so realistic in fact, that I had to remind myself that this was a work of fiction and not a documentary non-fiction book about a group of people I had yet to discover lived.

The only downfall is I would have loved to spend more time with the characters and find out what happened to each of them like ten years into the future. I was so invested in the plot and characters that I wanted more. This is a testament of a great book where you yearn for more long after the final chapter.

Overall this is a great book that should be read and cherished and would love to revisit this world again should the author decide to go further. The lights, sounds, smells, action, characters and plots are fantastic and keeps the reader very much involved. Well written and a testament to what can be accomplished by a fantastic writer who keeps his books and plots grounded in realism. A must read.

I enjoyed other works by William Boyd and liked the idea of the glamorous setting! It wasn't my cup of tea sadly, struggled to get into the book and abandoned it one third in. I know a lot of people will fully enjoy it though.