April 28, 2000

In his review of her Letters (2008), Julian Barnes spoke of Penelope Fitzgerald, (December 17, 1916 to April 28, 2000) as once, "the best living English novelist." He discussed her life and

'....moments in the Letters...when the professional observer of human beings finds sustenance and reward where others might find boredom or rudeness. Her life, on this evidence, was largely domestic, frequently peripatetic, and attended by regular economic crises. The magazine she edited, World Review, collapsed; her husband Desmond had trouble with drink; the houseboat they lived on sank not once but twice, carrying with it such archives as she possessed (including all her wartime letters to her husband, who is not represented here by a single item). Penelope and Desmond were, in the words of their son-in-law Terence Dooley, "two kind, intelligent and funny people who simply couldn't manage the world". Rescue at one point came in the shape of a council flat in Clapham, where the novelist collected Green Shield stamps and used teabags to dye her hair. Her writing had to be fitted into the occasional breathing spaces left by her family life; and she made little money until the late success of The Blue Flower in America (where it won a US National Book Critics Circle Award in the first year the prize was opened to non-nationals). It was a matter of rueful pride to her - and should serve as a warning to aspirant novelists - that she didn't pass into the higher tax bracket until she was 80. She was also accident-prone, given to falling off ladders and out of windows, getting herself locked in the bathroom and suffering other obscurer incidents ("I was knocked down by a bus queue and have a round bruise on my arm, just like the mark of Cain"). She tended to take the blame for things that were not her fault...'

Offshore (1979) one of her novels reflecting her experience living on a houseboat, has this feline vignette, "A cat, with her mouth full of seagull feathers, was feebly trying to climb up, but after a few feet her claws lost purchase and she slithered back by gradual stages to the deck."

Penelope Fitzgerald came from a distinguished family (her uncle for instance was Ronald Knox, author of Enthusiasm) and she continued a rare tradition.