Offshore

By: Penelope Fitzgerald, Alan Hollinghurst - introduction

Narrated by: Jot Davies, Stephanie Racine

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE
FEATURED ON BBC’S BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOK CLUB

Penelope 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.

Critic reviews

Praise for Penelope Fitzgerald and Offshore:

‘An astonishing book. Hardly more than 50,000 words, it is written with a manic economy that makes it seem even shorter, and with a tamped-down force that continually explodes in a series of exactly controlled detonations. Offshore is a marvellous achievement: strong, supple, humane, ripe, generous and graceful.’ Bernard Levin, Sunday Times

‘She writes the kind of fiction in which perfection is almost to be hoped for, unostentatious as true virtuosity can make it, its texture a pure pleasure.’ Frank Kermode, London Review of Books

‘Perfectly balanced…the novelistic equivalent of a Turner watercolour.’ Washington Post

‘Reading a Penelope Fitzgerald novel is like being taken for a ride in a peculiar kind of car. Everything is of top quality – the engine, the coachwork and the interior all fill you with confidence. Then, after a mile or so, someone throws the steering-wheel out of the window.’ Sebastian Faulks

‘This Booker prize winner is a slightly dark, witty novel … The brilliant Fitzgerald takes a subtle squint at thwarted love, loneliness and the human need to be necessary’ Val Hennessy, Daily Mail

Offshore

A beautifully written prize winning book unfortunately ruined by an abominable narration. Shame on you Audible.

Bohos on the Thames

“Offshore” presents a group of charming misfits who live on houseboats in a fading section of London in the early 1960s. The novel follows their romantic entanglements, frustrated ambitions and (like their boats) efforts to stay afloat.

The novel was well-written, although it sometimes drifted too far into the whimsical. I was not amused by two precocious sisters, ages 6 and 12, who are a little too brave, perceptive and well-spoken. But overall, this provides a brisk, entertaining listen. The narrator was strong on his characters’ voices, if sometimes a little overenthusiastic.

Wanted the story to keep going

After meeting all these characters, I didn’t want to leave them. A story that will stay with me.

Hard to follow and get into

I wasn’t sure what the point of this story is. The character development was weak.

Terrible ending.

Too difficult a read for an American in the 2020s. Had to spend half my time in a dictionary or on Google to understand words and phrases.