In William Trevor’s Folie à Deux (foolishness shared by two), the protagonist’s chance meeting with a childhood friend brings back memories of a joint act of animal cruelty on an Irish beach. The protagonist has moved on; his friend Anthony has not. Anthony’s way of dealing with his guilt was to withdraw into himself. Over thirty years later, having “disappeared” and been presumed dead, he lives a solitary, reclusive life in Paris, still unable to shake off self-reproach for his part in their actions. Themes: friendship, shared secrets, childhood cruelty, guilt, alienation, rumination (obsessive reliving of traumatic events).
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