Penelope Fitzgerald; Alan Hollinghurst / Alan Hollinghurst Jot Davies Stephanie Racine
WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZEFEATURED ON BBC’S BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOK CLUBPenelope Fitzgerald’s Booker Prize-winning novel of loneliness and connecting is set among the houseboat community of the Thames with an introduction from Alan Hollinghurst.On Battersea Reach a mixed bag of the temporarily lost and the patently eccentric live on houseboats rising and falling with the tide of the Thames.There is good-natured Maurice by occupation a male prostitute by chance a receiver of stolen goods. And Richard an ex-navy man whose boat much like its owner dominates the Reach. Then there is Nenna an abandoned wife and mother of two young girls running wild on the muddy foreshore whose domestic predicament as it deepens will draw this disparate community together.Offshore a literary masterpiece by Penelope Fitzgerald is an award-winning fiction that humorously explores the lives of an urban houseboat community. Long-listed for several awards this top-rated book beautifully intertwines elements of satire and romance.For fans of Rose Tremain (Absolutely and Forever) Sebastian Barry (A Long Long Way) Marilynne Robinson (Gilead) Iris Murdoch (The Black Prince) and Barbara Pym (A Glass Of Blessings).
