Penelope Fitzgerald, greatly admired as a novelist and biographer, died in 2000. She hadn’t had an easy or straightforward life having had to work indefatigably, in a range of jobs, to maintain her family after her husband’s return from the war as an alcoholic – all of which is detailed in Hernione Lee’s 2013 biography Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life.
I had read some of her later fiction but, Ashore which won the Booker Prize in 1979 (when I was up to my eyes in two small children, a full-time teaching job and maybe not as attuned to current fiction as I was later) had completely passed me by. I have now put that right in response to a recent conversation with a visiting friend who expressed first, admiration for this novel and second, astonishment that I’d never read it.
Ashore is set amongst a small community living on boats on the Thames close to Chelsea in 1961. Of course, as most writers do, Fitzgerald is trawling her own experience, because yes, she did live on the river for a while so she knows this nautical world very well from the gangways which lead from vessel to vessel, to the danger of leaks, the significance of the tide and a lot more. She is also good on what happens if a boat actually sinks.
Her characters are a bunch of misfits and quasi drop-outs with their troubled marriages, feral children and, in one case, criminal activity. In places it’s laugh aloud funny but there are tragic undertones. Richard, for example, has a “proper” job, war-time officer experience and the only boat which is kitted out safely and comfortably. He is the natural leader and puts himself out constantly for others but his wife is unhappy. He’s a sweetly drawn stereotype of vulnerability concealed by stiff upper lip. We’ve all met him.
Then there’s Nenna whose feckless, useless husband has left her because he doesn’t want to live on the boat which is her only asset. She desperately wants him back and ricochets aimlessly from day to day while her – delightful – children are more competent at most things than she is. They don’t bother to go to school much but know the river and how to manage the boat to the manner born. Then the son of a friend of Nenna’s sister turns up – all Germanic courtesy and charm – and there’s a wonderful account of him and Martha, hormones pounding, going exploring in the “swinging” Kings Road and sending Tilly the resourceful, unwanted younger sister back to the boat.
It’s a novel about friendship, coping strategies and making do under difficult circumstances, complete with a vivid enough storm to make Benjamin Britten or Vivaldi envious, and a powerfully evocative image of the Thames and London. What more could you want?
Next week on Susan’s Bookshelves: The Bookbinder of Jericho by Pip Williams
