Nights at the Alexandra

In a small town in Ireland middle-aged Harry looks back on his wartime adolescence when he fetched and carried for the beautiful young Englishwoman who had taken over the big stone house with her much older German husband. But Frau Messinger's health is failing, and her husband decides to build a cinema in the town to honour her. Harry will work in it; one day he will own it; and he will always remain captive to the memory of the beguiling young woman who arrived suddenly from abroad and lit up his drab provincial life.
William Trevor's gift of understanding the poignancy in apparently small lives is beautifully realized in this short novel.