Nights at the Alexandra — William Trevor

From the award-winning author of Love and Summer: A short novel about coming of age in WWII-era provincial Ireland that “certainly lingers in the mind” (Harriet Waugh, Spectator).

At fifty-eight, Harry is a lifelong bachelor who never left the Irish village where he was born. But he will never forget the beautiful Englishwoman, and her much older German husband, who brought a new world into view when they escaped Hitler's Germany to come and live at Cloverhill.
 
To fifteen-year-old Harry, Frau Messinger was a vision of elegance and culture unlike any he'd ever known. Ignoring his family's suspicions, he was happy to fetch her packages in exchange for time spent in her company. But it wasn't only the horrors of history that drove Herr and Frau Messinger to Harry's village. And when Herr Messigner begins building a lavish art cinema, the Alexandra, as a gift to his dying wife, the project becomes Harry's lifelong obsession.