Miss Gomez and the Brethren

Miss Gomez runs away from a Jamaican orphanage to London. There, among other things, she finds God. He resides, so the advertisement declares, in Tacas, Jamaica, at the Church of the Brethren of the Way - and Miss Gomez becomes his latest recruit.

Beryl Tuke, whiling time away in the Thistle Arms with gin and cheap romances, and Alban Roche at Bassett's Petstore are among the street's dream-ridden survivors. A new arrival, Miss Gomez, on the run from her tragic childhood in Jamaica, now lives for her postal correspondence with the Church of the Brethren of the Way back on the island.

Miss Gomez and the Brethren by William Trevor - a classic early novel from one of the world's greatest writers

'Like Rembrandt, Trevor looks long but charitably upon his creations . . . his understanding of human nature is acute' Sunday Times

Beryl Tuke, whiling time away in the Thistle Arms with gin and cheap romances, and Alban Roche at Bassett's Petstore are among the street's dream-ridden survivors. A new arrival, Miss Gomez, on the run from her tragic childhood in Jamaica, now lives for her postal correspondence with the Church of the Brethren of the Way back on the island. No one will believe Miss Gomez when she announces her revelation of a hideous sex crime soon to be committed in Crow Street. That is, until young Prudence Tuke disappears, the police arrive, and the newspapers herald a 'Sex Crime Prophecy'...

'The genius of William Trevor is that he can entice you into his fictional terrain in a handful of pages' Literary Review

William Trevor was born in Mitchelstown, County Cork, in 1928, and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. He has lived in England for many years. The author of numerous acclaimed collections of short stories and novels, he has won many awards including the Whitbread Book of the Year, The James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence. He has been shortlisted three times for the Booker Prize: in 1976 with his novel The Children of Dynmouth, in 1991 with Reading Turgenev and in 2002 with The Story of Lucy Gault. He received the prestigious David Cohen Literature Prize in recognition of a lifetime's literary achievement, and has been knighted for his services to literature.