‘A period drama that’s light on the history, or a bleak family saga that’s still heavy on the humour’ – Nourishment by Gerard Woodward

Gerard Woodward’s latest book, Nourishment, is set during and after World War Two; like his earlier novels, it’s a family saga, and it mixes comedy, drama and pathos in equal degrees, resulting in an engaging, if at times lightweight, read.           

The Pace family are scattered when we first encounter them; husband Donald is missing in action, the kids have been evacuated, and only Tory and her mother, Mrs Head, remain in their small London home. As it turns out, Donald’s not dead after all, but a prisoner of war, and he writes to his wife from Germany, begging her to compose and post to him a series of dirty letters – which, unbeknownst to Tory, he plans to trade amongst the other men for camp luxuries and the respect of his fellow soldiers. Tory, meanwhile, has an affair with her boss and falls pregnant – when Donald returns home to find an addition to the household, she pretends she found little Branson as an infant on a bomb site. But this is only the beginning of the Pace’s troubles – Woodward’s unfortunate creations have to suffer madness, suicide, and pornographic notoriety before he’s done with them. It’s a varied and entertaining plot, and although Tory’s the main character, Woodward gives us plenty of insight into other people’s lives and minds – from Mrs Head’s worries that she’s accidentally become a cannibal, to eldest son Tom’s paranoid suspicions about his mother’s true identity.

There are three main sections to the book – during the war, the immediate outcomes of Donald’s return, and the later repercussions of everything that happens in the meantime. The first chunk is mainly concerned with Donald’s demand for sexually explicit letters from his wife, and this was, unfortunately, the weakest part. It’s initially funny, but over fifty pages later, repetition sets in and the humour definitely leaches away. One brief chapter would have sufficed, I thought; point made, and on with the story. So my initial impression of the book was that it was drawn-out and relied too much on a single, rather weak joke. Once Donald gets home, though, the pace picks up and the story moves from a one-dimensional gag into a dark and complex family portrait. Woodward’s at his best when dissecting domesticity and family dynamics (check out August and I’ll Go To Bed At Noon) and as the narrative jumps from Tory and Mrs Head’s perspectives to those of Branson and Tom, it all gets very poignant and more emotionally complex than the first hundred pages or so might have led you to suspect.  

But despite the subject-matter, it’s a pretty light read. Woodward doesn’t deal with shell-shock and trauma with the same precision and focus as Pat Barker or even Sebastian Faulks, and though the one-thing-after-another rush of the second half successfully conveys the chaos of family life (and post-war life), it did occasionally feel like the author was skimping on the details of the character’s emotional reactions to their surroundings. The family’s two daughters were very peripheral, for instance, whilst their brothers were much more well-rounded characters. Likewise, the WWII-era scenario felt realistic to me, but it didn’t have the same sense of period as, say, a Sarah Waters’ novel, or, again, anything by Faulks. Furthermore, Tory’s meditations on writing, and her way of dealing with her own experiences through fictionalising them, is a pretty clumsy and obvious way for Woodward to spell things out for his readers, and his brief foray into homesexuality, with Tory’s friend Grace, felt underdeveloped. Nevertheless, it seems churlish to condemn him for taking a slightly more middle-brow approach – he’s created a memorable cast and a darkly humorous story. It didn’t resonate with me the way his earlier work did, but it was enjoyable all the same, and once I got past part one, it was a quick and absorbing read.

Any Cop?: If you like a period drama that’s light on the history, or a bleak family saga that’s still heavy on the humour, and you’re looking for a pretty quick read, than I’d recommend this – with the caveat that those new to Woodward might prefer to give August a go instead.

Valerie O’Riordan