Offshore

Offshore (1979) is a novel by Penelope Fitzgerald. It won the Booker Prize for that year. It recalls her time spent on boats in Battersea by the Thames. The novel centralizes around the idea of liminality, expanding upon it to include the notion: 'liminal people,' people who do not belong to the land or the sea, but somewhere in-between. The epigraph, "che mena il vento, e che batte la pioggia, e che s'incontran con si aspre lingue" comes from the Canto XI of Dante's Inferno.


List of Characters and Their Boats (in order)

Lord Jim
Richard Blake, husband (39 yrs old).
Laura Blake, wife (aka. Lollie).

Maurice
Maurice.
Harry (Maurice's acquaintance, though he doesn't love on-board).

Grace
Nenna James, mother.
Martha James, teenage daughter.
Tilda (Matilda) James, daughter (6 yrs old).
Edward (estranged father and husband; never lives on-board).
Stripey (the cat).

Dreadnought
Willis (65yrs old painter, widower).

Rochester
Woodie, husband.
Janet, wife (actually lives ashore).