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about the book

Winner of the Booker Prize
Dazzling. The novelistic equivalent of a Turner watercolor. Washington Post
On the Battersea Reach of the Thames, a mixed bag of the slightly disreputable, the temporarily lost, and the
patently eccentric live on houseboats, rising and falling with the great rivers tides. Belonging to neither land nor
sea, they cling to one another in a motley yet kindly society. There is Maurice, by occupation a male prostitute,
by happenstance a receiver of stolen goods. And Richard, a buttoned-up ex-navy man whose boat dominates the
Reach. Then there is Nenna, a faithful but abandoned wife, the diffident mother of two young girls running wild
on the waterfront streets.
It is Nennas domestic predicament that, as it deepens, draws the relations among this scrubby community
together into ever more complex and comic patterns. The result is one of Fitzgeralds greatest triumphs, full of
her trademark wit, deft characterization, and vivid scene setting, and a novel the Booker judges deemed flawless.
This new edition features an introduction by Alan Hollinghurst.
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questions for discussion
We hope the following questions will stimulate discussion within reading groups and provide for every reader a
deeper understanding of Offshore.
1. What might be the significance of the title Offshore, other than its obvious reference to living on houseboats? In
what ways may Nenna, Richard, Maurice, and Willis all be characterized as offshore? In contrast, how is life
onshore portrayed?
2. We learn that Nennas attitude to truth was flexible, and more like Williss than Richards. What are Nennas,
Williss, Richards, and Maurices attitudes toward the truth? Do their attitudes toward it change?
3. There are repeated references to the ebb and flood of the rivers tide. What are some examples of how these
fluctuating currents mirror the storys events and the characters lives?
4. What prevents Nenna from reuniting with Edward? In what ways might both Nenna and Edward be responsible
for their separation?
5. Fitzgerald writes that the barge-dwellers . . . would have liked to be more respectable than they were . . . But
a certain failure, distressing to themselves, to be like other people caused them to sink back . . . into the mud
moorings of the great tideway. How do Nenna, Maurice, Willis, and even Richard embody that certain failure,
and what prevents them from rectifying their situations?
6. In what ways do the boats conditions and names, Lord Jim, Grace, Dreadnought, Maurice, and the others, reflect
the owners personalities and lives?
7. Maurice says to Nenna, There isnt one kind of happiness, theres all kinds. Decision is torment for anyone with
imagination. What deters the characters from making decisions and experiencing happiness? Why might making
a decision be torment for anyone with imagination?
8. What ironies emerge in the novels final scenes?
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fitzgerald on fitzgerald
on brevity: I do leave a lot out and trust the reader really to be able to understand it. [My books are] about twice the
length . . . when theyre first finished, but I cut all of it out. Its just an insult to [readers] to explain everything.
on choosing a subject: Youve decided youre interested in a subject or a period and then you go and read about it
. . . And then you look at pictures about it and listen to the right music and . . . it begins to reconstitute itself.
on her books as tragic comedies: [My books] are too sad really to be comedies, but not important enough to be
tragedies. And Ive got . . . a great feeling for people who are defeated by life . . . Theyre very decent sorts, usually, but its really all
rather too much for all of them.
on children: Introducing children into a novel is helpful because they introduce a different scale of moral judgment. Its
probably one that theyve learned from adults, but adults themselves dont stick to it.
Writers & Company, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Radio
praise for penelope fitzgerald
Fitzgerald is a deft and nimble writer . . . [who] displays the English gift for understatement. Her apt phrases are tossed off
casually; her humor is flicked at us airily. Washington Post
Mrs. Fitzgeralds special talent is stylistic, a mannered comic dryness that relishes absurdities without dwelling on them too
long: she moves at speed, is full of dry observations and inventions, and at her best is very funny.
Anthony Thwaite, Observer
Fitzgerald was the author of several slim, perfect novels . . . She was curiously perfect. Teju Cole, author of Open City
The unpredictability of her intelligence . . . never loses its quality, but springs constant surprises, and if you make the mis-
take of reading her fast because she is so readable, you will miss some of the best jokes. Times (London)
No writer is more engaging than Penelope Fitzgerald. Anita Brookner, Spectator
about the author
PENELOPE FITZGERALD published her first novel, The Golden Child, in 1977, when she was sixty years old, and went on
to publish eight additional novels to increasing praise and prizes. Three The Bookshop (1978), The Beginning of Spring (1988),
and The Gate of Angels (1990) were short-listed for the Booker Prize. She was awarded the Booker Prize for Offshore (1979).
She also wrote three biographies. Penelope Fitzgerald, who died on April 18, 2000, is still regarded as one of [Englands]
finest and most entertaining novelists (Observer).
Prior to her career as a novelist, Fitzgerald led a varied professional life. In addition to raising three children, she worked as a
journalist, in the Ministry of Food, at the BBC, and as a teacher. These experiences, as well as her travels, provided a wonderfully
rich harvest of settings and characters from which she later crafted her remarkable works of fiction.
Among her abiding themes are the courage and determination of innocence in the face of sometimes monstrous adversity,
the rewards of courageous eccentricity or creative effort, the presentation of ones own sense of self, and the sometimes tiny
sources of both grand achievement and terrible loss.
In addition to perfecting a style graced by wit, keen perception, and mastery of language, Fitzgerald wrote a series of dry,
shrewd, sympathetic, and sharply economical books [that] are almost disreputably enjoyable (New York Times Book Review).
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