With ‘Trio’ William Boyd has once again shown what a fabulous storyteller he is. Three characters, three problems all interlinked and three very different endings. Highly recommended.

I have always admired and enjoyed William Boyd novels but sadly this left me flat. It was set in the late sixties but felt more like the fifties.

This could have been such a good novel but seemed to run out of steam.

I was really pleased to receive this, as I am a fan of William Boyd. I really enjoyed this one as well - he is so good at bringing situations to life with all their intrigue and it was very interesting to have an insight into the world of film making.

Another great book from William Boyd.
Talbot Kydd is in his 60s. A film producer, he fought in the Second World War. He's disillusioned by his life and work, and has realised that, despite following a conventional path, marrying and fathering two children, he is almost certainly homosexual. In 1968, this is no longer illegal...
Elfrida Wing is married to the film director who is working on the film with Talbot. She is an author who has not written a book for 10 years. She gets through her days in a state of constant inebriation. Her husband, Reggie, is serially unfaithful to her.
Anny Viklund is a 28 year old American actress and star of Talbot's film. She has a chaotic love life, which leads to all sorts of complications.
These are the three main protagonists around whom the story is woven. Boyd's writing brings them to life in a book that is a discussion of identity, woven into a fairly simple tale.
A really good read.

This is a little bit like "Valley of the Dolls" in its themes. Set in 1968, (he gets the period spot on), it is about three people who are all involved in the making of a film - an actress, a producer and an author. They have a problem each - drink, drugs and repressed homosexuality (which had only just been legalized). The characters are devious and shallow and the plot cuts from one point of view to the another (in mid paragraph sometimes). There is plotting, corruption, bribery and betrayal. All in all, not a very pleasant read. I do like some of William Boyd's work, but not this one.

William Boyd brings us a smart and savvy tale of 3 protagonists loosely bound together by the production of a film in Brighton in 1968. We meet a novelist with writers block and alcoholism (think vodka decanted into Sarsons vinegar bottles), the film’s producer on a personal journey which enlightens him beyond his wife and 2.4 children and the star of the film with a set of complex relationships.

The plot is politically astute and pacy, bringing together threads of a society still impacted by war but heading towards more liberal attitudes (albeit some issues certainly regressed for periods in the interim).

While I enjoyed Trio, I did not wholly warm to any of the characters and some aspects of the ending were unduly neat. There is enough in the book to keep readers thoroughly entertained and I’d therefore go with a 3.5*.

Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin UK for an ARC.

Quietly beautiful, sharply observed, often funny and easy to get lost in. Took me a while to get involved, didn't quite fall into it until the second half.

This is a hard book to classify. It has no real story line and therefore no climax as an ending. The characters are all involved in the film industry and the book comprises their life stories. Each faces life changing events which derive from their troubled pasts and dysfunctional lives. The book comprises stories of them finding themselves. It is well written and is perceptive about human relationships and aspirations. There are moments of humour and some clever lines. One of the film crew, Reggie, is described as being ‘secure in the castle of his ego’ and his wife Elfrida has a ‘miscarriage led to a corresponding miscarriage’. This book is an interesting idea.

This is set in Brighton in the late ‘60s, and follows the lives of 3 people who are linked by a film being made there. Anny is the lead actress, an American, who tends to poor taste in men. Elfrida is the directors wife, an author in her own right who is always compared to Virginia Woolf, for reasons she herself can’t see. And Talbot, one of the producers who is too naive for this cut throat business.

The book portrays the sense of the 60s very well, boundaries are being pushed and anything goes now, a far cry from WWII and the austerity that followed. I enjoyed Talbots story, his self discovery, and how he handles it, which comes as a surprise to him. Anny was so vulnerable, so innocent, again surprising for someone in the film industry. The one I didn’t find interesting was Elfrida, her story felt a bit contrived but I enjoyed the way it played out at the end. And a couple of nice twists too.

Thanks to netgalley and the publishers for an ARC in return for an honest review.

William Boyd is well known as a great storyteller and yet I had not previously read any of his novels, although he has been on my to read list for some time. Well I have finally made the plunge and enjoyed the ride. 

The story is set in the 1960's and features three main characters, an american actress named Anny, a film producer named Talbot and a novelist named Elfrida. All three are great characters and entertain throughout the novel while trying to deal with there personal issues. Anny Viklund is the lead in a new film being filmed in Brighton and although a star she is full of insecurities, dependant on prescription drugs. Film Producer Talbot Kidd is homosexual and is being deceived out of money by his business partner. And finally Elfrida Wing who is struggling to write her next big novel while dealing with her cheating husband and ever worsening drink problem.

Very good storytelling that makes a very entertaining read. 

I would like to thank both Netgalley and Penguin UK for supplying a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

A collection of three's. Three parts to the book, three main characters. I know there's more, but I can't recall.

1960's Brighton, Young Actress, wanna be pop star and a ladder to the moon. Backdrop using the area in and around the afore mentioned location. Filming is a constant, and rewriting the script is unavoidable.

Full of the sixties favourites, sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. Although not much of the latter.

It is set at a modest pace, with a plot that throws a few twists in it.


Status: Completed

Rating: 4.0/5.0

William Boyd is a versatile author with a great range of novels. This is the first I can think of that focuses on three main characters rather than a single one - hence the 'title. The book is set during the summer of 1968 in Brighton, with all three protagonists connected to a film being made there. Anny is an American film star, whose troublesome ex-husband has escaped from prison and may be on his way to find her. Talbot is the film's producer, an old-fashioned British gentleman and closet homosexual, 'too nice' for the cut-throat movie business. And Elfrida is a novelist with writer's block who has turned to alcohol, and is married to the film's director.

Apart from their connection to the film, the three characters are very different. I grew to like Anny and Talbot and really cared about their fates. I found Elfrida less likeable, but she was interesting and I did eventually invest in her storyline too. The book does have a slow start and for the first quarter I wasn't sure I was going to think much of it. But by the second half I'd 'got into' and really enjoyed reading how things worked out for the three. None of the three storylines was predictable.

Boyd's writing is easy to read and in parts is really quite brilliant. There are certain set-pieces that are so well observed and well expressed that I found myself admiring them of themselves. For example, a section where the novelist explains why people read novels, and another about observing the orchestra at a concert. I also enjoyed the multiple first paragraphs that Elfrida wrote for her new novel - it offered an insight into the creative process and I liked the way Boyd created at least five potential openings all of which said similar things but in different ways. It made me realise how much difference just a few words can make and how a writer might have to agonise over the simplest wording that a reader would take for granted.

Overall, I enjoyed this novel and liked the three characters and their different but interweaving plotlines. It gets four rather than five stars simply because it lacked an overall brilliance or really strong emotional impact, which Boyd is capable of offering in some of his books. But it's worthy of his reputation and confirms he is still a novelist whose books can be looked forwards to.

From the first paragraph you KNOW you are in for a treat with this book. With three main characters: an establishment producer 'family man' who is in fact homosexual; a best selling novelist with writer's block and an unfaithful husband, and a beautiful young American actress addicted to drugs and with a dodgy ex-husband, this is an intriguing and brilliant read.
Set in the 1960s, with a film being made, the three characters are lovely connected. Boyd adds twists and turns and nothing is resolved to the last page. There are some laugh out loud moments as well as some appalling secondary characters.
I highly recommend this, and Boyd has found his mojo again with this novel.
Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

The In-Crowd

What the titular trio have in common is a propensity to ignore what is their main issue and to focus on other less important problems. There is Anny, the American movie actress, the lead in a Swinging Sixties film being made near Brighton on England’s south coast. She covers her own insecurities with a dependency on prescription drugs and relations with unsuitable men. There is Talbot, the film’s producer, wrestling with his latent and covert homosexuality while dealing with all the daily difficulties of making the movie – not least being defrauded by his business partner. There is Elfrida the novelist, wife of the film’s philandering director, suffering from writer’s block while in complete denial of her drink problem. The three interrelate only sparingly and ineffectually, yet have the potential to help each other much more, if only there were time, opportunity and interest.

I suppose William Boyd draws widely on his own experiences in this very funny, but wistful and sentimental story: the novelist’s experience of unwelcome comparison and writer’s block; the constant crisis management of the film set; the insecurities and personal inadequacies of the artists. The three stories wrap around each other with great skill and the 1960s setting is cleverly managed. I found myself wholly engaged in the characters and the various plots and loved how Talbot, a fundamentally decent man, eventually turns the tables on his rascally colleague. In the end it could be argued that all three confront their central problem with a degree of success. How that works out in actuality is a tribute to the author’s genuine skill.

Footnote. Elfrida comments on the names of her husband’s children by his first wife. ‘Who gave them such ridiculous names?’ As I have commented in a review of The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth, such daft names abound in William Boyd’s fiction. Who named them, Elfrida? The author did.

It is a well-known fact that William Boyd has a genius for storytelling. So, it's hardly surprising that TRIO proves this several times per page. I won't attempt to outline the plot here (trust me, you don't want spoilers, you just want to turn up in the deep end and enjoy), but I will say that it's another game of emotional 'Twister' with everyone knotting themselves around each other to move from poignant to madcap and back again. Yet, as entertaining as the events of the story are, the real joy here is the characters.

In all of Mr Boyd's previous novels, I came away feeling I know his leading imaginary friends better than some members of my own family. The beauty of TRIO is that this time he has given us three main characters to climb inside and inhabit. Each one a joy in his/her own right, with preoccupations longtime fans will delight in anew (sex, poor old Virginia Woolf, sex, the excesses of the film industry, sex, writing, photography, love, loyalty, class and, of course, sex).

The prose is limpid; the dialogue sublime. As ever, there were things I had to look up, and I came away with three expressions I'll be dropping into as many conversations as possible this week: prophylactic vodka, inorcism, and goatfuck.

In short, I loved this book and my only regret is that my father and uncle, both also Boyd fans, didn't live long enough to read it. I'd loved to have heard them laughing over their favourite bits.

With many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to see a review copy of this novel.

A film being made in Brighton in 1968 connects our trio either directly or indirectly. Elfrida Wing is a novelist, her early successes earned her the accolade of being the ‘New Virginia Woolf’. She’s had writers block for ten years and so secretly (she hopes) drowns her sorrows, cleverly disguised vodka in a Sarsons vinegar bottle. She’s married to the philandering film director Reggie Tipton who prefers to go by Roderigo - we can understand why! The second of out trio is Talbot Kidd, a film producer of more than a dozen films, he’s married in name only. Our third is Anny Viklund, the American star of the brilliantly named film ‘Emily Bracegirdles extremely useful ladder to the moon’. The majority of the book looks at various forms of ‘Duplicity’ which the characters experience and the finale is their ‘Escape’.

What a BRILLIANT book. 1968 was a cataclysmic year historically, a watershed between the old and ‘the times that are a’changing’ of the new and the characters in the book reflect this perfectly. The events of that year are intrinsic to the storytelling and are woven into the narrative organically which I really like as its clever storytelling. There’s everything from laws legalising homosexuality which of course makes the Brighton setting especially pertinent which we view through Talbots eyes to anarchy which is demonstrated via Anny. She is divorced from a convicted anarchist who is her nemesis that comes back to haunt her and she is forced to flee the film set and escape to Paris. She sees evidence everywhere of the May riots and becomes an unwilling political victim for which she pays a high price. The characters feelings are conveyed well and at times this is very intense. I especially love Elfrida, she’s irreverent and funny and I enjoy her obsession with Virginia Woolf. Sadly she’s at the end of her tether but she finds rehabilitation and rejuvenation in an unlikely place. Talbot seems naive and not worldly wise and in many ways he isn’t but as his producer partner Yorgos discovers he’s nobody’s fool. The characterisation throughout is excellent, they are all vividly portrayed from the blousy colourful old school actors to the new of Anny and her co-star Troy Blaze. I love how Talbot keeps hearing snippets of Richard Harris’ version of MacArthur Park which is about losing a chapter of part of your life which reflects what happens to the trio.

Overall through the medium of the Brighton based film we have an excellent snapshot of an historic year. This is a clever and extremely well written book as you would expect from an author of the calibre of William Boyd. There are rich descriptions which capture the tumultuous times, the sex, drugs, political upheaval and the huge seismic change both politically and socially. The brilliant characters are an excellent vehicle for reflecting this important year. I loved it and this is one book I’ll remember for a long time. Highly recommended.

With thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House/Viking for the much appreciated ARC.

Trio was an interesting read that held my attention from start to finish. The three characters whose stories we follow were all well drawn and engaging, the film being the link that held them together. We got a sense of the time period through their concerns and difficulties, without the need for info dumps about fashion or music etc. to set the scene. Although not an action story per se, there was enough going on in the three characters' lives to maintain a good pace and keep the story moving along. By the time I turned the last page, I was satisfied with what I had read; however, I don't see this tale sticking in my mind forever in the way one of Boyd's previous works, Armadillo, did. Therefore, I would give this book four stars. Well worth a read and a fine example of storytelling, but not my favourite piece by this author.

I received this book as a free eBook ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

(My review will go live on my blog and on Goodreads at the link below on 6 October 2020. I will then also share across social media.)

Here we have three main characters, loosely linked by a film that is being shot in the south of England in the late 1960s. They each have personal problems and they each come to see that they need to take matters into their own hands to resolve them - drastic, life-changing action is required. The novel is mainly concerned with what will they decide to do and whether they are going to be able to go through with it. The characters are well written, though I didn’t feel the time and place came across as strongly as I might have liked. A good, straightforward holiday read, I’d say.

Based in Brighton in 1968, this story revolves around a filmset. "Trio" refers to the three main characters. As usual Boyd is easy to read with interesting observations. I did however find the book to be very disappointing. The plot meandered too widely. Furthermore, the three main characters were implausible.

It’s been a while since I last read William Boyd, round about the late 90s. He seems to have changed paperback publishers since then. It always seemed Boyd and Penguin went together like rum and coke.

You always know where you stand with him. Boyd’s style never draws attention to itself and treats even his oddest characters with dignity, refusing to condescend or judge.

Trio looks at a disparate group of characters in 60s London but the background is at best incidental to the plot. The more interesting parts are all about Efrid, the blocked lady novelist with a penchant for stashing vodka in a bottle of Sarson’s white vinegar. Not the equal of his 1987 masterpiece The New Confessions but never less than enjoyable.