The William Trevor Reader: “Mags”
When we meet the titular character in “Mags,” she is already dead. Which is appropriate, given the story is about a lifelong victim, Mags, and the paradoxical power that victimhood can confer. Mags is, typically enough, a lifelong spinster, whose one-off affair with a Mr. Blakley “left a mark.” In the aftermath of this affair, she moves in with her wealthy schoolfriend Cicily and Cicily’s husband Cosmo, and helps bring up their children, James and Julia. Over the next three decades, Mags is a constant presence in the house and in the family’s emotional terrain.
