Trio by William Boyd
What a delight to read a literary novel that’s not just well written, but also tremendous fun to read. So often the label ‘by an award winning author’ actually means ‘hard work but you can tell your friends you’ve read it,’ this is not the case with ‘Trio’ which has great characterisation, a plot that romps along at a lively pace and some real laugh out loud moments.
The trio are three people all linked to the making of a disaster prone film in Brighton in the summer of 1968. The producer Talbot Kydd is a married man, and closet homosexual. Anny Viklund is the film’s young American star, intimidated by her French radical lover and her terrorist ex-husband. And my favourite character Elfrida Wing is a novelist, suffering from writer’s block, swigging vodka from a vinegar bottle and married to the film’s director, Reggie, or to use his newly acquired more fashionable name, Rodrigo.
All three characters are hiding secrets and problems and we see them trying to face up to some life decisions with varying degrees of success. But this is not an angst filled novel, rather it is a brilliant blend of comedy, mixed with sorrow, pain and disappointment. I love a book that can make me laugh and then break my heart, and this is exactly what Trio does.
Boyd writes with a wonderfully light touch, he never intrudes on the story, but delicately draws you in until you feel you’re there, watching the stories unfold with your own eyes.
There’s some delightful attention to 60s period details, the unrest of 1968 and the lost and bizarre world of old school movie making, but I think the book could have been set in any period and still ask its timeless questions about the choices people make and what makes life worth living.
A great read, highly recommended.
With thank to NetGalley and the publishers for a free copy of this book in return for an honest review.

A cleverly weaved trio of stories that captivates from beginning to end. The 1960s setting is well conjuried, and the characters are compelling and memorable, even if the plot does go a little off-piste. Nonetheless, I just sunk into William Boyd's writing, knowing I was in good hands, and happy to be carried away by the story, character and world he creates.

This book was a slow read for me initially. I couldn’t get into the characters and cannot explain why. Eventually I thoroughly enjoyed the story, lots of Spivvy type people that reminded me of my youth in the 60’s. I haven’t read William Boyd before and I would like to read more of his work now.

Trio is a relevant and insightful novel that makes you think and challenge your own perceptions. It's a compelling and thought-provoking read that provides great talking points with friends.

I love William Boyd and this novel - set in the glamorous 60s, with an even more glamorous set of characters - had me from the first page. It was a world I didn't want to leave.

William Boyd is an incredible observer of human nature and experience, and this book confirmed his established gift. I also found the questions he asked in the novel to be particularly relevant as we compare 2020 to the 1960s and ask what sort of life/world we want to make. Excellent, excellent read. Thank you for the copy.

The trio of the title are three individuals in Brighton in the late '60s, all connected by a film.

Talbot is the producer of the film, a closet homosexual, married with children, and grappling with understanding himself.

Elfrida is a fading novelist and an alcoholic, one big book to her name, and trying again and again to commit pen to paper.

Anny is an actress, star of the film. Her love life is complicated and somehow she's got herself tangled up with the FBI.

All of the characters in this book are intriguing, although it took me a while to get into them. The atmosphere was vibrant and creative, and I enjoyed the story.

William Boyd is one of those writers who regularly surprises with the huge variety of subject matter he is attracted to but can be relied on to write about it beautifully. I was, therefore, delighted to be given an ARC (thank you NetGalley and Penguin UK) of Trio.

Unfortunately, this novel, set in the late 60’s in the English film industry, just didn’t work for me. My first issue was around the characters, none of whom seemed terribly convincing. The trio of the title are Anny, the film star; Elfrida, the writer and Talbot, the Producer. Along the way we meet spouses and lovers, past and present and touch on relevant topics of the period such as the civil unrest in France and the legalisation of homosexuality. There is also a harking back to the 2nd World War and further still, to the Bloomsbury set and Virginia Woolf, setting the 1960’s in context as a pivotal period.

One issue which I never resolved was quite how we were meant to view these characters. At times there was comedy on a nudge-nudge, wink-wink level, at times satire and at others tragedy but I just didn’t engage with the characters deeply enough for any of it to work well for me. I also found the endings unconvincing and was left unsure as to what I was meant to have felt or concluded. For me, sadly, this was a rare misstep.

This over-hyped novel is simply one long cliché from beginning to end. Not that I got to the end. It simply didn’t engage me. The characters were stereotypes, the dialogue wooden, the plot unlikely and the writing often clumsy. It concerns the interweaving lives of three characters involved in the making of what sounds like a pretty terrible film in Brighton in 1968. A few period details attempt to anchor the story in its time and place, but really it could have taken place anywhere, anywhen. Nick Duerden in his review called it a “literary Ealing comedy” and that sums it up for me. The humour is forced and I didn’t find it at all funny – just as I don’t find Ealing comedies funny. I see that many readers have found it a good and entertaining yarn – and I can see that they might, after all it’s not a terrible book – but it didn’t work for me and I bowed out gracefully before the end.

William Boyd’s latest book tells the story of three characters whose lives intersect during the production of a movie in the 1960s. There is Talbot, the film producer; Anny, the film star; and Elfrida, a novelist who is also the film director’s wife. As you would expect, each of the characters has their secrets and these all come to the fore to effect their lives in different ways.

I enjoyed reading this book but I’m not sure it will live long in my memory. I liked and felt some sympathy towards all of the main characters but some of the supporting ones felt a bit stereotypical. I also felt the story would’ve been serviced better by being a bit longer in order to give more detail to the end of each of their stories. Without giving too much away, Elfrida’s particularly felt a little bit out of character and too simplified.

Maybe the author had this in mind while he was writing it, but I think this would make an excellent movie itself and I was left wondering if anyone has already snapped up the film rights, much like Talbot does on one occasion in the book!

While I have my criticisms, I would recommend this book and would like to thank NetGalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read it.

What a great book and what an excellent writer!
It's the first book I read by William Boyd and won't surely be the last.
He's a master storyteller and delivers an interesting and engrossing story that kept me hooked.
I appreciated how well he described the historical time frame and his character development.
It's an excellent read that I strongly recommend.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I do enjoy a William Boyd book, and this one is no exception. The three main characters, Talbot, Anny and Elfrida are beautifully drawn and evoke both sympathy and a certain irritation, as a good character should. The sixties rattle away in the background, shown through the film all three a somehow involved with - which is one of those strangely-titled, whacky movies that were made when everyone was on drugs. I lived through that time, so I remember it well. (Sort of) There is humour and ridiculousness as well as pathos and some great sixties' characters inhabiting the background eg the pop star, the radical philosopher, the thespian knight, the working class female writer, the Carry On type actors, so there's plenty going on.

I was hooked by this novel - though it isn't a thriller or blockbuster - and it kept me up reading until well into the night. The ending was a little strange. The two women both did totally unexpected things but it somehow worked.

This is exactly what character driven stories should look like - Boyd has a gift for drawing you in to the lives of his characters and making you feel as though you are right there.

It’s 1968 - the same year that JFK and MLK were assassinated and of The Vietnam War and riots in Paris. However, our story focuses on three characters all connected by a film shoot in Brighton - Talbot, the producer, Anny, the lead actress, and Elfrida, novelist and wife of the philandering director.

Talbot, after keeping his sexuality hidden for years whilst fighting in WW2, is finally exploring the opportunities of the swinging 60s, whilst also dealing with the daily madness of the film industry.

Anny is suffering from her poor choice of ex-husband, who has managed to draw her to the attention of the FBI and risks destroying her career.

And Elfrida is drowning her sorrows about the lack of writing she’s been doing with bottles of vodka disguised as vinegar, when she finally finds some inspiration in the idea of Virginia Woolf’s final day - but when her agent isn’t interested her alcoholism spirals even further out of control.

Three wonderfully imperfect characters who in turn made me envy them, pity them and root for them - exactly what I’m looking for in a story.

I absolutely loved the backdrop of Brighton for this book, as it’s only down the road from me so it felt familiar yet completely different to the Brighton I now know.

I was swept away by both the glamour and the seedier side of the film industry and found this so evocative that it left me desperately wanting more.

An absolutely compelling read and one that will not disappoint Boyd fans!

I've been reading William Boyd for more than half a lifetime and was really pleased to get a copy of his latest, Trio, to review.

‘Trio’ takes three characters whose lives are slightly connected, puts them in a time of great change and lets us watch what happens to them – or maybe doesn’t.

The time is 1968 and the world is erupting around them. McArthur Park is the theme tune of the summer. In Paris there have been riots and protests, in the UK homosexuality has finally been legalised (or decriminalised – I’m not exactly sure of the difference) and the world is watching two superpowers engaged in a Cold War and a Space Race. What better time to make a movie about a ‘ladder to the moon’ – rather silly movie, but a great excuse to bring people together.

Talbot is the producer of the film, a genteel and educated man of refined tastes and a homosexual who finds himself unsure about how he’ll fit into a world where his proclivities are no longer a crime. Elfrida is a novelist, bizarrely characterised as ‘the new Virginia Woolf’, at a time when few are even interested in the old one. She’s a barely functioning alcoholic with a husband who is a serial adulterer and the director of Talbot’s film. And finally, we have Anny, young, beautiful and American with a terrorist ex-husband, a revolutionary much older French boyfriend, and a dalliance with a young singer-cum-actor called Troy.

To say they have their issues would be an understatement.

William Boyd takes us on a journey with each of them, occasionally bringing two or more together, often letting them buzz around in an idle and irregular orbit. The film is a mess, the characters either drunk, stoned, loved-up or horny, and nothing’s really going to plan. Side plots have Elfrida stalking Woolf from beyond the grave, Anny weighing up the simple energetic lovemaking of her co-star against the complex flaccidity of older me, and Talbot contemplating seduction of men at a time when the law allows but it doesn’t mean he’s always going to read the signals right.

The book is more a journey than a destination. The ending is mixed. You could say everybody finds peace of sorts, but each in very different ways. We are reminded that not everything in the Sixties was quite as ‘Swinging’ as folklore would suggest.

Set in the 1960s based around 3 disparate characters linked to making a film. Each has a secret .
I am afraid this book did not capture my attention which was disappointing . I found the structure difficult

As ever with Mr Boyd, readable but...

William Boyd is a great writer, of that there can be no doubt; The New Confessions, A Good Man in Africa, Any Human Heart all use particular moments in history to say something profound and insightful about the human condition.

Trio uses the same technique, the year 1968, but unfortunately doesn't really have anything to say about the period, people or even the characters. In fact, it's almost as if Mr Boyd raises issues; the legalisation of homosexuality, Paris 1968, the nature of film, the job of being a writer, and then shies away from them in favour of being anodyne and bland.

The story concerns the lives of three characters involved in making a film, however tangentially, in Brighton in 1968; Talbot, a producer, Anna an actress, and Elfrida, the wife of the film director. We follow their ups and downs as the book potters along. The writing, as ever with Mr Boyd, is elegant and readable. It's just that I felt no connection with these characters,. They came from the pages of a book rather than coming alive.

A shame really, as this book promised so much and delivered so little.

One final word, the format of this book was appalling from a professional publisher. Typos. bad line breaks, no line breaks, all were plentiful. Even worse, Mr Boyd plays with the structure of the novel throughout, however, this was rendered unreadable by the errors in the formatting. Errors that could have been solved by a couple of hours work.

The characters in this book were so diverse and all interesting in their own way The story is based in Brighton in the 1960’s. I loved Elfrida particularly and could imagine her with the Sarsons bottle in the cupboard behind the sugar. The story goes backwards and forwards between the characters and as you carry on reading how they interwine. They are all leading lives that they perhaps would or should change but for whatever reason they do not. Elfrida particularly was a novelist but had not written a book for 10 years having had writer’s block probably due to her alcohol intake but decided she would start again. She was forever creating titles for the books but never got any further. The book is based around the making of a movie and the actors in the film have their own stories. I did not exactly enjoy the book although some of the characters I enjoyed

William Boyd is always worth spending time with, even if not every novel will hit his best heights - 3.5 rating

Trio, set in 1968, follows the personal, secretive journeys of three people, loosely connected to each other through a rather dreadful sounding film, shooting in Brighton.

One of the many reasons I enjoy reading Boyd so much is that he seems to deeply embed in time and place, most particularly in a couple of his ‘sweeping through the Twentieth Century zeitgeist’ novels, Any Human Heart, and The New Confessions. Here, I felt somewhat in disconnect from the times, even though there were marginal connections to what was happening in Paris, with radical insurgency arising particularly from the student movement.

The Trio of the title are Talbot, the somewhat melancholic producer of the film, Anny, the American actress who is the star of the film, a woman with a disastrous affinity for unsuitable, dangerous men, and Elfrida, a once highly successful novelist hailed as heir to Virginia Woolf, challenged by her own writing block, and her marriage to Reggie-who-wants-to-be-known-as-Rodrigo, director of the getting progressively more awful film.

Reggie, whom Talbot (quite rightly) thinks is ‘an insufferable, deluded, self-important little man’ bears much of the comedic butt of the novel, though there are others who share in being types to laugh at, particularly a collection of past their best Grand Actors and Variety Artistes.

The comedic and devious challenges involved in the making of the less than masterpiece film are a backdrop to the secrets and lies behind the façade of each of the three main characters. Each of them, their character flaw, and what they are hiding, is very obvious, right from the start.

My rating, 3.5 raised to 4, might well have been higher had this been the first Boyd I had read. Nonetheless, I am very glad to have read it, and grateful to have received a digital ARC of it from NetGalley

Usually enjoy Boyds books but this one was very much a disappointment for me. Tricky to keep track of the characters and their comings and goings although enjoyed the reminders of the 60s and the descriptions of Brighton and environs.

William Boyd novels never disappoint and this one is no exception.
It is 1968 a year of world upheaval: assassinations in the USA, riots in Paris, the disastrous war in Vietnam. Against this backdrop the author takes us to a film set in Brighton where all the cliches of low budget British film production are used to full effect.
This is a bittersweet look at the flip side of success for it's three central characters. The writing is tender and profound.