7.2 /10 1 Votes
Cover artist George Murray Publisher HarperCollins Pages 141 pages Originally published 1979 Genre Fiction OCLC 38043106 | 3.6/5 Goodreads Country United Kingdom Publication date 1979 ISBN 0-395-47804-9 Preceded by The Bookshop Awards Booker Prize | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Offshore (1979) is a novel by Penelope Fitzgerald. It won the Booker Prize for that year. It recalls her time spent on boats on the Thames in Battersea. The novel explores the liminality of people who do not belong to the land or the sea, but are somewhere in between. The epigraph, "che mena il vento, e che batte la pioggia, e che s'incontran con si aspre lingue" ("whom the wind drives, or whom the rain beats, or those who clash with such bitter tongues") comes from Canto XI of Dante's Inferno.
Contents
Characters and their boats
Lord Jim
Maurice
Grace
Dreadnought
Rochester
Plot summary
The novel is set in London in the early 1960s. When Edward takes a job overseas his wife Nenna stays behind in London. With no job, little income and an absentee husband, she resorts to living in a houseboat on the Thames. There she and her two daughters are surrounded by a supportive group of like-minded boat-dwellers. Their houseboats reflect their personalities, ranging from carefully maintained to nearly derelict.
Edward returns to London, but refuses to live with Nenna. Unable to confront her marital problems and infatuated with Richard, Nenna drifts through her days as her prosperous and energetic sister tries to persuade her to move to Canada for the sake of her daughters. Matters become complicated when Willis's boat sinks unexpectedly, Laura leaves Richard and Nenna finally confronts Edward.