A Son of the Rock

Flamingo, 1988, 138 p.

This book won the Booker Prize in 1979. However, it didn’t chime with me at all. It’s set in the early 1960s in a community of houseboat dwellers on a part of the River Thames known as the middle Reach and roams between various characters who all display a curious level of detachment.

Nenna took on the tenancy of the boat Grace while her husband Edward was abroad but on coming back he refused to step foot on it. He now lives elsewhere in London. Their children, Martha and Tilda, spend their time thinking of Cliff Richard and Elvis and roaming the muddy tidelines avoiding school. The marriage of Richard Blake and his wife Laura of the Lord Jim is shaky. Maurice (who has named his boat Maurice,) lives a shadowy life and allows a dodgy mate to use space on his boat to store stolen goods. Willis is trying to sell Dreadnought despite the fact it has a bad leak and has asked the others to conceal that.

The main thread running through the book is Nenna’s desire to have Edward return to her but her attempt to secure this ends badly, yet then he suddenly blunders onto another of the boats.

There was though at least one good line; about the ability of men to do nothing at all in an unhurried manner being one of the things they can do better than women. (I couldn’t help wondering what the other things – if any – are?)

I suppose I couldn’t get on with this for the same reason I have difficulty with appreciating Muriel Spark. Most of the characters seem opaque and unconvincing.

Pedant’s corner:- I did have a pedant’s corner for this but due to not posting this review soon after reading I cut them for the posting I do on Goodreads and a private blog. It was from the latter I recovered the review to put it on here.