The William Trevor Reader: “The Teddy-Bears’ Picnic”
I must admit to feeling dispirited by the title of this story before reading it, but “The Teddy-Bears’ Picnic” is actually a pretty fun one—I ought to have known that with a title like that, Trevor would deliver something appropriately vicious.
The story concerns a young married couple, Deborah and Edwin, whom we meet in the midst of a row about her desire to attend a teddy-bears’ picnic in the summer. This is a tradition she has held into her twenties with a group of people she grew up with
