Eva Trout (novel) why Iseult took the gun in exchange for the typewriter she left to Eric, Iseult states that it might be a matter of a "Hedda Gabler complex." In this play written by Henrik Ibsen, Hedda hands in a gun to another character to assist him in committing suicide. Eva Trout (novel) Eva Trout is Elizabeth Bowen's final novel and was shortlisted for the 1970 Booker Prize. First published in 1968, it is about a young woman—the —who, abandoned by her mother just after her birth, raised by nurses and nannies and educated by governesses all hired by her millionaire father,
Hedda Gabler disarray. Eilert, a writer, is also a recovered alcoholic who has wasted his talent until now. Thanks to a relationship with Hedda's old schoolmate, Thea Elvsted (who has left her husband for him), Eilert shows signs of rehabilitation and has just published a bestseller in the same field as George. When Hedda and Eilert talk privately together, it becomes apparent that they are former lovers. The critical success of his recently published work makes Eilert a threat to George, as Eilert is now a competitor for the university professorship George had been counting on. George and Hedda are financially overstretched,