Ep 733 - The Bookshop, by Penelope Fitzgerald

Summary

Overdue Podcast – Episode 733: The Bookshop, by Penelope Fitzgerald

Original Airdate: December 15, 2025
Hosts: Andrew and Craig

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Episode Overview

This week's episode of Overdue dives into Penelope Fitzgerald's 1978 novel The Bookshop, a story that, as Andrew discovers, is not the cozy, bibliophile's celebration he expected. Instead, Fitzgerald delivers a wry, sharply satirical exploration of class, ambition, and quiet defeat set in a damp English seaside town in 1959. The hosts discuss the novel's plot, themes, and critical reception, and reflect on Fitzgerald's late-blooming literary career. As always, their discussion is peppered with offbeat humor, relatable tangents, and sharp literary observations.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting Expectations (07:07–08:08)

• Andrew explains he chose the book expecting a whimsical, book-loving narrative (a la "Mr. Penumbra" or "The Cat Who..." books) but was thrown a major curveball:

  "It's extremely Not that. And I did like what it was, but it was a curveball I was not expecting." (08:02, Andrew)

2. Who Was Penelope Fitzgerald? (08:08–18:13)

• Craig gives an engaging biography:
  • Born in 1916, Fitzgerald came from a notably literary family (the Knoxes).
  • Career in teaching, BBC employment, tumultuous family life post-WWII with an alcoholic husband, co-editing literary journals, and even living on a frequently-sinking houseboat.
  • She only began writing fiction in her late 50s, with Offshore winning the Booker Prize in 1979.
  • Her fiction is divided into works drawn from life (like The Bookshop) and later historical novels (The Blue Flower being a breakout).
• Fitzgerald wrote about "exterminatees"—those destined for defeat, which shapes her literary outlook:

  "The weaknesses of the strong and the tragedy of misunderstandings and missed opportunities, which I have done my best to treat as comedy, for otherwise, how can we manage to bear it?" (17:46, Craig quoting Fitzgerald)

3. The Town of Hardborough and Florence Green (25:35–27:28)

• Florence Green, the unassuming widow protagonist, decides to open the only bookshop in Hardborough, a decaying town on England's North Sea coast.
• The hosts riff on the book's “kooky” but pointed social observations:

  "She is sort of a—she's a middle aged widow… She had a kind heart, though that is not of much use when it comes to the matter of self preservation... She was, in appearance, small, wispy and wiry, somewhat insignificant from the front view and totally so from the back. Oh, I just think it's a very funny way to say somebody has a flat butt or whatever." (27:14–27:29, Andrew)

4. Community, Conflict, and Mrs. Gamart (32:04–34:44)

• Hardborough is depicted as a “damp,” insular town in decline, where everyone knows each other’s business.
• Mrs. Gamart, a social climber, becomes Florence's main adversary, covertly (and not-so-covertly) working to dislodge Florence’s bookshop in favor of an “arts center.”
• The resistance isn’t rooted in literary snobbery, but in petty parochial politics and class maneuvering.

5. The Ghost, the Law, and the Downward Spiral (39:21–47:29)

• The book is filled with dry, offbeat humor—especially around the old house’s “rapper” ghost (40:04–41:03) and the government’s indignant letter about employing a child in a haunted building:

  "Her health, safety and welfare are at risk in your premises, which are haunted in an objectionable manner. I quote from a deposition… I'm advised that under the provisions of the act, the supernatural would be classed with bacon slicers and other machinery..." (40:24–40:57, Andrew)

• Series of setbacks orchestrated (often opaquely) by Mrs. Gamart:

  • Legal threats about crowds outside the store.
  • Child labor inspections targeting Florence’s pragmatic (and sassy) young assistant.
  • New legislation conveniently allowing the government (i.e. Gamart’s nephew) to seize historic properties—a thinly-veiled vehicle to evict Florence.

6. Power, Defeat, and Thematic Resonance (46:21–47:25)

• The show highlights Fitzgerald’s theme of “exterminatees”—those swept aside by class structure and small-town conservatism:

  "She blinded herself, in short, by pretending for a while that human beings are not divided into exterminators and exterminatees, with the former at any given moment, predominating..." (46:24–46:32, Andrew)

• Florence’s struggle is not framed as a clash of equals, but as a system rigged against the ordinary.

7. The Ending: No Sentimental Victories (48:16–52:03)

• As events come to a head, Florence loses the bookshop. Her only possible ally, the reclusive Mr. Brundish, dies attempting to intervene.
• The machinery of class and legal maneuvering wins; Florence leaves town in shame:

  "As the train drew out of the station, she sat with her head bowed in shame because the town in which she had lived for nearly 10 years had not wanted a bookshop. The end." (51:38–51:41, Andrew)

8. Tone, Reception, and Fitzgerald’s Prose (54:17–55:59)

• Despite the bleak plot, the writing maintains a light, ironic tone:

  "The book does not read like quite as much of a bummer as I think it is. And it is because the language is… economical and it's light and it's got a sense of humor and… has a funny way of describing bad situations." (54:25–54:51, Andrew)

• Listeners and Goodreads reviewers largely praise the wit but note the gap between expectations (a cozy bookshop tale) and the reality (a “damp,” incisive social critique).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Florence’s disposition:
  "She had a kind heart, though that is not of much use when it comes to the matter of self preservation...", 27:14 (Andrew reading from the novel)

• On the “dampness” of the novel:
  "The word that came to mind to describe the bookshop is damp. My spirits were certainly dampened after reading..." 58:05, (Craig reading Goodreads review)

• On Mrs. Gamart’s opposition:
  "You’ve put us. You’ve quite put us to shame by being in such a hurry, Mrs. Green. But the fact is we’re rather upset by the sudden transformation of our old house into a shop..." (34:56, Andrew quoting the book)

• On the supernatural workplace hazard:
  "I’m advised that under the provisions of the act, the supernatural would be classed with bacon slicers and other machinery through which young persons must not be exposed to the risk of injury." (40:44–40:52, Andrew reading from government letter)

• On the ending’s realism:
  "Surely she was supposed to win everyone over and fall in love with an old grump or something…it’s a scathing critique of the fairly recent past, not nostalgia for a simpler time." (56:40, Craig quoting a listener)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:36 – Podcast proper begins; holiday/cold weather banter.
• 07:07 – Andrew introduces The Bookshop and initial expectations.
• 08:08–18:13 – Penelope Fitzgerald biography and career arc.
• 25:35 – Introduction of protagonist Florence Green and setting.
• 29:26 – Description of Hardborough and its decline.
• 32:04 – Social dynamics, introduction of Mrs. Gamart.
• 39:21 – Bookshop struggles, ghostly quirks, and mounting opposition.
• 46:21 – Thematic discussion: exterminatees vs. exterminators.
• 48:16 – The climax, Mr. Brundish’s failed intervention, and Florence’s defeat.
• 54:17 – Prose style, humor, and reviews.
• 58:05–59:41 – Goodreads reviews: “dampness”, expectations vs reality.
• 64:32 – Andrew on Florence’s ordinariness and the point of the novel.

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Additional Observations

• The hosts enjoy Fitzgerald’s dry, “upper-class zinger” prose—comparable to Austen but with fewer stylistic hurdles for modern readers.
• The show points out how the book’s marketing (cover design, blurb) promises a cozy read, which the actual story subverts.
• The Bookshop is ultimately about ambition, class, and the realities of small-town British life—where status and inertia carry the day over gentle, modest hopes.

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Final Thoughts

Andrew and Craig leave listeners with an appreciation for Fitzgerald's sharp, sardonic insight into failure, small ambitions, and the complex power struggles that can spell doom for an outsider or upstart. The tone and humor of the prose keep the book from being a slog, and the episode is a great exploration for anyone interested in literary fiction that defies the “cozy bookshop” stereotype.

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For Listeners:
If you enjoy “loser-lit,” social satire, or quietly devastating drama with a masterful comic touch, The Bookshop is well worth your (short) reading time. But don’t expect miracles—like Florence, you may find that modest dreams are, alas, just as easily swallowed up by the fog.

Transcript

[Craig]

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[Andrew]

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[Craig]

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[Andrew]

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[Craig]

People say nonsense and I say no, thank you.

[Andrew]

I have been using Mint Mobile for years now, like well before they were ever an advertiser with us. It's great service. It is cheap. I pay once a year and so I pay in like December for service and then the rest of the year I kind of feel like I'm getting, getting away with something because there's nothing extra that's coming out of my bank account. I have to say, I think even before candy canes, this is my favorite Mint of the holiday season is Mint Mobile.

[Craig]

I like that. So turn your expensive wireless present into huge wireless savings future by switching to Mint. Shop Mint unlimited [e-mail] overdue. That's mint mobile.com overdue. It's a limited time offer. Upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for 12 month plan required. That's the 15 month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term Only greater than 35 gigabytes. May slow when network is busy. Capable device required. Availability, speed and coverage varies.

[Mattea Roach]

See mintmobile.com okay, so you've just finished an amazing book. You laughed, you cried, you told all your friends about it. But you're not ready to be done talking about it yet because you have a million questions for the author. Here's where I might be able to help. I'm Mattea Roach and on my podcast bookends, I ask authors all your burning questions. Like why is John Green obsessed with tuberculosis? And why did Taylor Jenkins Reid want to bring her latest love story to outer space? You can check out bookends with Mattea Roach on your favorite podcast app.

[Andrew]

This is a headgum podcast. While Andrew and Craig believe the joy.

[Aura Frames Host 1]

Of discovery is crucial to enjoying any.

[Andrew]

Well told tale, they will not shy away from spoiling specific story beats when necessary.

[Aura Frames Host 2]

Plus, these are books you should have read by now.

[Craig]

Hey everybody. Welcome to Overdue. It's a podcast about the books you've been meaning to read. My name is Craig.

[Andrew]

My name is Andrew.

[Craig]

None of you at home can hear the number of times we tried to turn this engine over and get this podcast started for you.

[Andrew]

It's cold outside. They these old. These all hung. These old hunger junkers don't like it when it's cold. Have trouble turning over.

[Craig]

This bad boy can fit so many clogged sinuses. This is what we're doing out here. It's winter time.

[Andrew]

It's winter time. It's a time for being with one's family. It's a time for enjoying a nice holiday themed beverage. Like what I am enjoying here, which is my. My holiday. My Holiday Creamy Vanilla Coca Cola zero sugar.

[Craig]

I think it. You're supposed. You were supposed to talk about that on next week's episode. I can't believe you.

[Andrew]

I could talk about. I could. I can talk about Holiday Creamy Vanilla on next week's episode too.

[Craig]

No. Why is it?

[Andrew]

I don't. It is just Vanilla Coke Zero, which was always one of the better flavor variants. And something about the pandemic. Just like it scrambled every other part of society, it scrambled the Coke flavors. They were doing all those weird citrusy ones. Then the pandemic hit and then they kind of went. They just scaled back and were just doing the basic flavors for a while, but now they got like an orange cream thing and they got Holiday Creamy Vanilla. And they have this retro diet Coke with lime thing that comes in like an old looking can.

[Craig]

Okay, that's cool. Okay.

[Andrew]

I just like the Coke. The Coke flavors are back.

[Craig]

I like that and I'm happy about.

[Andrew]

That, but I'm not happy about Holiday Creamy Vanilla.

[Craig]

Hate what it's called. And I do like the idea that when they. When everybody had to go work from home, the flavors went with them and they didn't return to the office.

[Andrew]

We just can't be doing all these flavors anymore.

[Craig]

No, you can't cut back. Well, maybe. Maybe it was like the candles, maybe could. People couldn't taste the flavors, so they got rid of them.

[Andrew]

People at home will be interested to know that Holiday Creamy Vanilla Coke Zero, Coca Cola Zero Sugar, contains no dairy. It's the biggest thing in the nutrition facts above the no calories that it has in it.

[Craig]

Someone at the Coke plant was like, we have to tell them there's no dairy.

[Andrew]

We have to tell. Even though it is called Holiday Creamy Vanilla, there's no cream.

[Craig]

There's no cream. Welcome.

[Andrew]

So that's why. That's what I'm drinking for the holidays.

[Craig]

Yeah, sure.

[Andrew]

It's Holiday Creamy Vanilla, Coca Cola zero Sugar.

[Craig]

This is not product placement. This is his own predilections.

[Andrew]

No, this is my weird thing. If I see a new flavor, I'm gonna grab it. Which is why it was such a big deal for me when there stopped being new flavors for a while.

[Craig]

Yeah, you need. You need that new. You need that new.

[Andrew]

I love. I'm the guy who will grab a Coke, a new Coke Zero flavor so fast that you take it to the cash register and they're like, how much did this say it cost? It's not in the system yet.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

This has happened to me multiple times.

[Craig]

Good. It's good to know yourself and know thyself.

[Andrew]

That's what I'm up to.

[Craig]

Great. I'm interested to know what else you got up to in prepping for this week's episode of our book podcast, where each week one of us reads a book, usually one they've never read before, and tells the other person about it. Andrew, what were you doing other than drinking Diet Coke? Holiday Creamy Vanilla.

[Andrew]

I read the Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald.

[Craig]

Oh, the Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald.

[Andrew]

Penelope Fitzgerald.

[Craig]

I see.

[Andrew]

That's the one.

[Craig]

That's the one. Well, that's good, because I prepped a little information on Penelope Fitzgerald, so I'm glad that we lined that up.

[Andrew]

Yeah. I will just say, like, up front, that I kind of, like, I found this on some list of short novels. Like, it was shortlisted for a Booker Prize at one point. Yeah, yeah. And I was just based on the title. I was kind of expecting it to be one of those books that we've read a bunch of, like, Mr. Penumbra and like, the Cat who Sold Books.

[Craig]

Yeah, sure. All those episodes where, like, the romance of literature.

[Andrew]

Yeah. It's like books and stories are magical and so I wrote a book about it. But this isn't that.

[Craig]

It is my understanding that this is not.

[Andrew]

It's extreme. It's extremely. Not that. And I did like what it was, but it was not. It was a curveball that I was not expecting.

[Craig]

Okay, we will come back to the Booker Prize thing, because I do just have a few notes on that. I have not read any Penelope Fitzgerald. Her career sounds kind of fascinating. Her writing is split into, like, two eras. She had eras before Taylor Swift had eras. She. But there's only two of them. Not like 20 or whatever.

[Andrew]

Eddie Vedder hated Ticketmaster before Taylor Swift hated Ticketmaster.

[Craig]

Make a list of all the things, whatever.

[Andrew]

Just like art is always in conversation with what came before, is what I'm saying. I'm not saying that Taylor Swift is a derivative. That's the opposite of what I'm saying.

[Craig]

Penelope Fitzgerald, born in 1916, passed away in the year 2000. She came from a literary family of sorts. She was a niece.

[Andrew]

What does that mean?

[Craig]

A niece of the theologian and crime writer Ronald Knox. The cryptographer Dylwyn Knox, a Bible scholar.

[Andrew]

He loves Ethereum.

[Craig]

Yeah. A God. A Bible scholar named Wilfred Knox, and the novelist and biographer Winifred Peck. She would later go on to write a biographer, a biography called the Knox Brothers, about her family. And there are, like, stories from, I think, her. One of her daughters recounting what she heard about, like, it was a family where you spent a lot of time at the dinner table playing literary games, and you had to be really quick and clever and, like, you're just in this house with all these people who are just, you know, sparring with words all the time. And it certainly shaped, you know, who she was as a person. She was sent off to boarding school at the age of seven. And then her mother passed away when she was 18. She went off to study college at Oxford, at Somerville College. She did, I think, overlap with Tolkien jrr, I think.

[Andrew]

Were they buds? I don't know if he was.

[Craig]

If he was teaching there at the time. I'm checking the. The timeline right now. Yeah, Maybe he was teaching there because he was born quite a ways earlier. Yeah, that so?

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

After graduation, she worked at the Ministry of Food. What a good name for anything.

[Andrew]

Sounds like a sick place to work.

[Craig]

Well, I hope not. And she also worked for the BBC. She. Her husband, Desmond Fitzgerald, did some tours in World War II in isn't he that.

[Andrew]

Isn't he that Boat that Wrecked.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Well, the Desmond Fitzgerald.

[Craig]

Okay. He was trained as a barrister. He would later go on to become a travel agent. He struggled, you know, finding a career in law they were after the war, they were co editing literary magazines. One called the World Review. And he ultimately gets disbarred and, you know, loses his job. He is struggling with alcoholism, I think probably an effect from the war. And throughout the rest of their life together they are intermittently struggling to make ends meet. There's a. She is like teaching at various schools. At one point they are living in a house. Houseboat. They move out of whatever apartment they had. They have to go live in a houseboat. It sinks twice, I think. Very traumatic. She would go on to write a book about living on a houseboat called Offshore, which is what did win her the Booker Prize in 1979. And he passes away in 1976 I believe. And he was not well. They had two or three kids and she had started writing some biographies in the mid-70s. And then embarks on her first novel called the golden child, published in 1977. She'd started writing it to humor him and it was inspired by Tutankhamun Mania, which I mostly share because I kind of just forget that that was like a thing. That that was like a new thing.

[Andrew]

People were nuts for Tut.

[Craig]

I just remember like middle school when they just like teach you about King tutorial and I forget that we didn't always all know about him.

[Andrew]

Yeah, we didn't always know about him. When was Tut Main? When was Tutmanium?

[Craig]

Let me double check that.

[Andrew]

It just reminds me of Orchid Delirium. Like just people can. People can turn anything into Beanie Baby.

[Craig]

When was Tut Mania? I'm struggling to find because I'm thinking, I'm.

[Andrew]

I'm just remembering. I don't know if you watch the Reruns of the Old 60s Adam West Batman show. Oh, a kid. But King Tut, just like literally King Tut was a vill. Was part of the Rogues Gallery on that one. I'm not sure if he's in the comics or not, but.

[Craig]

So King Tutmania was like back. Started back in the 20s or 30s. So. Okay, okay. Not. Not a 70s thing, but a thing that she's writing her first novel about.

[Andrew]

Got it.

[Aura Frames Host 2]

Okay.

[Craig]

So this is her second novel, 1978. It is shortlisted for the Booker Prize. I will give you the blurb from the Booker that year. Went to the Sea. The Sea by Iris Murdoch book I think has come up as potentially being read on this show before. We'll see if we get to it. Here's the blur. We'll see, we'll see, we'll see, we'll See, not every town without a bookshop necessarily wants one, as Florence soon discovers in this wise and funny gem from Penelope Fitzgerald.

[Andrew]

I think the tagline for the. Was it Emily Mortimer who's in that? I always think just think of her as bird bones from 30 Rock. But she's in a movie adaptation of this and I think that's similar to the tagline.

[Craig]

Okay, okay. Yes.

[Andrew]

Not every town that has a book or whatever.

[Craig]

The thing that struck me too, on the Booker Prizes website, they have a little blurb about her that says the novelist and biographer Penelope Fitzgerald won the Booker Prize in 1979 with Offshore before executing a poacher turned gamekeeper. U turn. And joining the 1991 judging panel. What a weird turn of phrase.

[Andrew]

What a weird way to say that.

[Craig]

Yeah, that she just decided. Plenty of people who win prizes also serve on panels to judge them. It's actually like, makes a lot of sense.

[Andrew]

Yeah, but do they win a prize and then, like, whip off their disguise and then like, backflip. What was that across the room to be behind the judges table? Like, she apparently did here.

[Craig]

A U turn. Several other novels, including Human Voices at Freddy's and then. So all of those from the bookshop through At Freddy's are all kind of taken from her life in one way or another. The bookshop she worked as a shop assistant in Suffolk. Offshore. She lived on houseboats. Human Voices is about wartime BBC. And At Freddy's is set at a school for child actors, which is one of the places that she taught in. And then in the mid-80s, she kind of moves off into historical fiction. Innocence is set in Florence in the mid-50s. The beginning of Spring is set in a printing business in Moscow in nineteen teens. Similarly, Gate of Angels is pre World War I. And then her last novel, the Blue Flower, which comes out in 1994. Five is based on a German romantic poet. And it becomes like this big sensation in the States. It's. She becomes the first non American to win the National Book Critics Circle Award. She just kind of broke through in the mid-90s with this work of historical fiction.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I think the. Wasn't this book the Bookshop released in America in the 90s? Like, I know it was originally published in the 70s, but yes, the date I saw on, I think it was like a Kirkus Review or something. Said it was published in like 97. So I wonder if it was riding that wave.

[Craig]

Yeah, There's a profile of her in the New York Times in 1999 called an author of a Certain Age. So if you've done the math, as I was recounting her biography, she's in her, like, 50s when she starts actually, you know, writing fiction professionally. And that is like the kind of logline for her career is like, check out what this author accomplished despite not even embarking on that career until much later in her life. And so there's this long profile by Arthur Libow in the Times, and, yeah, he mentions that, I guess in 99, finally, all of her novels will be available for print in America. It had not happened before then. So, yeah, that's. She passes in 2000. In the obituary in the Times, they say that she talking about her own writing. Her characters were people fallen into difficult circumstances, struggling to cope. She once called them, quote, exterminate. Exterminatees. Or Exterminatees, which she defined. Exterminate Extra, which she defined as likely to be stamped out with other things, unlikely to succeed. I mean, to the courage of those who are born to be defeated. The weaknesses of the strong and the tragedy of misunderstandings and missed opportunities, which I have done my best to treat as comedy for otherwise, how can we manage to bear it? And so, yeah, I've words like. I don't know how satirical you found this, Andrew, but some social satire is kind of tossed around as.

[Andrew]

Yeah, like, I don't know enough about the specifics of, like, rural and exurban, like, British culture in 1959, but it definitely does have, like. It has things to say about, like, sort of social climbers and the people who. Who are the, like, movers and shakers in society for sure.

[Craig]

Yep. And it was adapted. Operate. Yeah, as you meant, as you mentioned, into a 2017 film directed by Isabel Quazette, I'm guessing. And I think it was well received. Got a few.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Won some stuff award, had Bill Nighy and as you said, Emily Mortimer in it. So check it out. The. The New York Times review of that said, like, liked that it did not adapt the novel into something sweeter than it is.

[Andrew]

It sounds like it's pretty. Pretty straightforward as an adaptation, actually.

[Craig]

Yeah. Cool. Anything else, Andrew, before we take a quick break?

[Andrew]

I don't think so.

[Craig]

Great. See y' all on the other side in the bookshop.

[Andrew]

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[Craig]

I. That's what I've always. That's what I've always said, Andrew. You know me, I'm always out there saying that website is book for computer. But I Don't know how to write book.

[Andrew]

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[Craig]

Yep. Huh.

[Andrew]

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[Craig]

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[Craig]

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[Andrew]

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[Craig]

So you're going to sell me a book or what? I'm in this bookshop now and, and I need to read something for next week's episode. So I am. Chop chop.

[Andrew]

The most popular book in this bookshop, unfortunately, is one that we've done for the show already.

[Craig]

Oh, no. What is it?

[Andrew]

It's Lolita.

[Craig]

Oh boy. Oh boy. Ah. Okay.

[Andrew]

In 1950. This is the book. This is chapter one of the book. We talked just the other week about how much we like an afterword because forwards assume too much like knowledge and enthusiasm about the work for you. And I tried to read the forew this before I read the book and it was like, I'm just going to tell you every single quote in the book that I like. Like absent of any of the context. I was like, well, I can't read this. In 1959, Florence Green occasionally passed a night when she was not absolutely sure whether she had slept or not. This was because of her worries as to whether to purchase a small property, the old house with its own warehouse on the foreshore, and to open the only bookshop in Hardborough. This is. So it's. We're getting set up pretty. This is what the book is about. That's entirely what the book is about.

[Craig]

There's a lady in a town who might buy a house.

[Andrew]

There's a lady in a town who's gonna buy an old house and put a bookshop in it.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

In this town, what got no bookshop already.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Some other things about Florence Green. Just setting her up. She is sort of a. She's a middle aged widow. I believe her husband died in the war. She's lived in this community for. For a while, like 10 years. Can by herself. Just getting By. She had a kind heart, though that is not of much use when it comes to the matter of self preservation that is going to come up. And then she was in appearance, small, wispy and wiry, somewhat insignificant from the front view and totally so from the back. Oh, I just think it's a very funny way to say somebody has a flat butt or whatever.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

She's some totally insignificant from the back. Sure is how Lawrence Green is described.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

She was not much talked about even in Hardboro, where everyone could be seen coming over the wide distances and everything scene was discussed. She made small seasonal changes in what she wore. Everybody knew her winter coat, which was the kind that might just be made to last another year in 1959, when there was no fish and chips in Harboro, no laundrette, no cinema except on alternate Saturday nights. The need of all these things was felt, but no one had considered, certainly had not thought of Mrs. Green as considering the opening of a bookshop. Okay, so she's opening up. She's opening a bookshop. She's got a wild hair to do this. It's not. Again, it's not as though she has some innate love of literature or of books. Like the thing I mentioned with Lolita. Somebody writes her and says that Lolita is like a good and controversial book, and some people love it and some people hate it and you should sell it in your bookshop because it would get a lot of sales. And she, like, has to. She consults, like, an older gentleman in the town to, like, to ask if he thinks that she should stock Lolita. Like, it's not even a decision she feels capable of making herself.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

She also has some, you know, someone from one of the families in town come in and, like, balance her books all the time. And she really, really hates even, like, thinking about it, which I don't think is, like, uncommon for some small business owners.

[Craig]

Yeah, sure.

[Andrew]

But it is, you know, it's throughout the book. Her desire to do this thing is never in question. Though in my read, you don't ever get what is a fully satisfying explanation from her about, like, why a bookshop? Why not? Like, except for just, like, I'm. I live in this town. I. I want to do this. I want to prove that I exist. And so I'm gonna do it.

[Craig]

Okay. And this is a. And I don't know. We've talked about this too much. So it's set in, like, the Suffolk area of England. It's like seaside.

[Andrew]

Hartborough is a town lightly. Yeah. It Says a thinly disguised version of Southwold.

[Craig]

Southwold.

[Andrew]

Sorry, all you.

[Craig]

Southwold. Sure. Which in, like, residents. But it's on the North Sea. I guess my question. I don't have a lot of questions about Suffolk, but just in terms of the community of the book.

[Andrew]

That's good, because I don't know anything.

[Craig]

No, no, no, no, no, no. That's fine. But, like, it is, like, a seaside county of England, and these are plenty of, like, rural resort towns up there or whatever. I guess my question is, like, is this a community that has, in the book, in the story of the novel, like, visitors? Like, there's, like, a summer season? Or is this just like, a cloistered rural town where everybody knows each other's business and, like, that's what it's about.

[Andrew]

It's the second thing. And you definitely get a sense of Hardborough as a place that used to be more of something. Like, they used to have a train that came through. They used to have some other things, but it's fallen. It's past its peak.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

And so there's still people who live here. There are people who have lived here for a long time. There are people who have tried to build things. There's one sequence in the book where Florence is taking a walk and she sees this collection of, like, houses and stuff on a cliff by the beach that are all falling apart, and they're only five years old, and somebody just built them without thinking about what the houses were going to be built on top of. And then when, like, coastal erosion hit the. Hit the cliffs, the houses just started falling over. And so now nobody can live in them and nobody can sell them.

[Craig]

I feel like. I don't know. That was on the podcast, I feel, a few weeks ago, we were just talking about Grand Designs, and I have a very vivid memory of a coastal episode of Grand Designs where the whole thing is like, do you have enough mud to keep this house up? You are on the North Sea, sir. Stop doing this. Most episodes of Grand Designs are. Stopped doing this until it's just like.

[Andrew]

A wet, misty town. Wet, misty, salty town where everything is damp all the time. Yeah, damp is the word.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

I mean, the old house, particularly. So. I mean, it is. It is. It is an old house.

[Craig]

What was it again?

[Andrew]

It's an old house. It's called the old House, but it's not age.

[Craig]

It's not like. And. And a relative of the king used to live there. Or it's just an old house.

[Andrew]

What used to happen in the Old house. The old house is a property that is sort of falling apart. It's wet inside and outside. It's not particularly nice, and it's been sitting vacant for, like, seven years or so. When Florence decides I'm gonna set a bookshop up here.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

And the minute she does this, the. Some elements of the upper crust in the town of Hardborough immediately take issue with it. Oh. She is invited to the house of this woman, Mrs. Gamart, who. Who's invited her to this party just to, you know, a party that she would not normally have anything to do with and would not be invited to. She's invited Florence to this party so she can corner her and say, you know, I mean, I know the old house has been sitting vacant for a long time, and that just kind of made me feel like there wasn't any sense of urgency in doing anything with it. But now that you've expressed an interest in buying it and you're going so fast with this whole bookshop business, I really do want to tell you that it's vitally important that I get the old house and I change it into, like, an arts center for Hardboro. I don't know how much Gilded Age you've watched, if any.

[Craig]

I've watched some. I. I don't know well enough to, like, you know, rattle off character names or anything.

[Andrew]

Yeah, there's definitely a. There are a bunch of plot lines in Gilded Age that are about old money versus new money, basically.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

And Mrs. Gamart is def. Is definitely sort of a social climber. Like, not. Not of, like, the. The old. Old class of Hardborough. Like, those people are still around and think that Mrs. Gamarra is kind of silly, actually, but she kind of. She kind of runs things.

[Craig]

Okay. Okay.

[Andrew]

It's very much a Carrie Coons character.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

Whose name is Bertha Russell.

[Craig]

Bertha. Yes.

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Craig]

Yes, that. Listen, I have seen the photo of her eating the pizza in her costume. It is one of my favorite things. But I've also seen her acting in the show. I love Carrie Coon.

[Andrew]

I knew that. I knew that about you, but.

[Craig]

Okay, so now that. Now that she has. Florence has, like, expressed the machine that she wants to build here.

[Andrew]

Yeah. She says she's at the. She's at the bank asking for a loan. And because everybody knows everybody's business, it's gotten up to Mrs. Gamart that she wants the. She wants the house. And Lawrence is like, no. Like, this has been sitting empty for years and years. I. It's cheap. I want to start my bookshop Now, I'm not going to buy this old wet fish shop that's closing down so I can set a bookshop up in there. I'm going to do it in the place where I want to do it, and you can't tell me what to do.

[Craig]

Okay? Okay.

[Andrew]

And that's. Yeah, that's kind of her. That is her. I talk about how her motivations aren't very clear, but, like, her desire to do this is extremely clear. Yes, certainly she knew that Devon's wet fish shop was about to close. Everybody in the town knew when there was likely to be vacant premises, who was in financial straits, who would need larger family accommodation in nine months, and who was about to die. We've been so used, I'm afraid, to the old house standing empty, that we've delayed from year to year. You've put us. You've quite put us to shame by being in such a hurry, Mrs. Green. But the fact is that we're rather upset by the sudden transformation of our old house into a shop. So many of us have the idea of converting it into some kind of center. I mean, an arts center for Hardboro.

[Craig]

Huh? Our old house that we do nothing with.

[Andrew]

How dare you house. I can't believe you would transform it into a shop. Okay, so Florence transforms the old house, our old house, into a shop.

[Craig]

All by herself.

[Andrew]

Not all by herself. She has some, like, neighborhood. I don't know, like lovable newsies type urchin boys.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Come in and, like, hang up shelves. She has a, like the third daughter of one family in town, Christine, who's an 11, like a sassy 11 year old, comes in to help her run the shop and is very good at organizing things. But it also, like, yells at the customers all the time. And she is, you know, she's. She's doing okay. She's getting by. It seems like the bookshop's doing fine. Things sort of hit their highest ebb for her when the Lolita question comes up, because she does visit this. This older man in town who's, like, who's lived here forever, and he's got, like, the oldest house in the. In the city, and he never. He, like, never comes out and is never seen. But he is considered to be widely influential. And, like, one word from him could, like, make or break somebody's social standing.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

So he invites her to his house after she sends him. He sends her a letter when she opens the bookshop, being like, I'm so glad you're opening a bookshop. I can't wait to see what your, like, library offering is like. And she's like, well, now I have to offer a library, I guess. But people are. People are using the bookshop. People are interested. People are interested in the bookshop. And when people see how in over her head she seems to be, their attitude toward her softens and they become like, you know, gently supportive of her, like most, most people in the town. Not Mrs. Gamart, who's sort of operating in the, in the background like a, like a spider y supervillain.

[Craig]

Like a Dr. Claw.

[Andrew]

Yeah, a little bit.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

But she, yeah, she's. When Lolita's in there, she's making a lot of money. She's doing pretty good. Like, things are, things are looking up for the bookshop. The community seems to like having the bookshop in it. But it's around this time when, like, a weird pushback starts to happen and Florence is never. There is no scene in the book where Florence realizes really who is pulling the strings here. Like, she, she mostly just experiences it as like a series of personal misfortunes that befall her.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

But like, Mrs. Gamart is in the background pulling the strings, trying to get. Trying to foil Florence's efforts to open this bookshop.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

So there is, There are some letters from lawyers saying all the people who you've got in front of this bookshop in the street looking at your window display and like, talking about the scandalous book Lolita. It's a, It's a, It's a public. It's a public menace. It's. It's endangering the public. And I'm, I'm going to sue you about, like, someone has threatened to sue her basically because people are standing around in front of her popular bookshop.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

And she is, she does become a little, like everyone in the town does seem to suck. But she also is not making any effort to win herself any, any allies in this, in this fight that she's in, because it's, It's. I don't know, it seems like she's doing okay by herself. And so that's just what she's going to. She's going to do.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

Someone from, like, the government comes to the school where Christine is and is like, hey, here to do inspections of all the kids in town who work who. To make sure that no child labor laws are being broken. And there's this whole thing where they kind of dress her down for employing Christine, both because Christine is 11 and if she's 11, like, she shouldn't be working at all let alone the 44 hours that she apparently did work one week over the holidays. Oh, this the old house. One of the things about the old house. One. One thing is it's wet. The other thing is that it's got, like a. It's haunted by a ghost. And it's not like a ghost that you ever really see. It's just like a bunch of banging and rattling.

[Craig]

Oh, What?

[Andrew]

The ghost is called the Rapper. He just, like, wraps around and it's not like he doesn't pop up and be like, hey, I'm a ghost and I'm here to say I'm gonna haunt your house in a major way.

[Craig]

I mean, he should.

[Andrew]

He just taps and raps on the. On the walls and makes a bunch of noises and commotion. Okay, but this letter from the government yelling at Florence about employing Christine. Furthermore, her health, safety and welfare are at risk in your premises, which are haunted in an objectionable manner. I quote from a deposition by Christine Gipping to the effect that the rapper doesn't come on so loud now, but we can't get rid of him altogether. I'm advised that under the provisions of the act, the supernatural would be classed with bacon slicers and other machinery through which young persons must not be exposed to the risk of injury. This book is very funny in parts. Like, it's. It's.

[Craig]

That is. I had read that. Yes.

[Andrew]

It's kind of, you know, it's kind of a bummer, but it is. It is a funny bummer.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

It's a fun bummer.

[Craig]

And so Ms. Gamart.

[Andrew]

And then. And then the last thing is that you hear about this act making its way through Parliament, where the government can basically eminent domain sufficiently old and historic buildings. Oh, the people who own them.

[Craig]

From the people who own them.

[Andrew]

Yeah, if it wants to. Well, I mean, that's eminent domain, dude.

[Craig]

Well, no, no. Yes. Okay. Sorry. No, no, you're right, you're right, you're right. I was just like. I was already moving into, like, a historic preservation NIMBY place, and that's not quite what eminent domain is. So I've kind of not heard the eminent domain.

[Andrew]

It's kind of the opposite of that. Yeah, let's knock down the stuff so we can put something new up.

[Craig]

Oh, great.

[Andrew]

Can basically evict people from their houses and, like, give them recompense, in theory, which is where the eminent domain thing comes in. But if it's a building that's sufficiently old and they want to use it for, like, cultural purposes, it's a very Specific gambit clearly designed to get this one lady out of this one house.

[Craig]

House. Oh, man.

[Andrew]

One other lady can set up an art center there. But it's working its way through Parliament because Mrs. Gamart's like, nephew or something is a. Is an MP.

[Craig]

Oh, cool.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Okay, so these are the things that are working against Florence kind of in the background. And then in the foreground, she's just like the shop next to the bookshop. She offends the person there by. There's like a guy who writes her and says, I hear you have a bookshop. I would like to come and display my art there. And she doesn't write back. And he comes in and is like, well, you didn't write back, so I assume that was a yes. So here's my art.

[Craig]

Oh, no.

[Andrew]

And then she makes him move. She asks him to move into the shop next door. And so now he's displaying all of his dumb art that nobody wants to buy. And so the person in that shop hates her. And also the artist guy doesn't like her either anymore.

[Craig]

Oh, man. And so I just want to clarify something you said earlier.

[Andrew]

Yeah, yeah, dude, ask your questions.

[Craig]

Do we. The. I do. Okay, before I even ask my question, I do like the kookiness so far. Like, it just feels like there's a bit of kookiness. Overly kooky, but that, like, there is a wryness, you know, there is a.

[Andrew]

Like, what if everybody in Stars Hollow hated each other vibe to the community here.

[Craig]

Yes, everybody's got a thing, you know, but it's not coming together in harmony.

[Andrew]

It's at least not for this one woman who's decided to kind of push back against what the high society people in this town want.

[Craig]

As you're reading the novel, as you're explaining it to me, it is pretty clear Gamart's involvement in the various, like, you know, missives that are trying to bring down the old house bookshop. But you've also said that she doesn't seem to know that Gemart is involved. Like, what it. How does the novel deliver that information?

[Andrew]

You mostly. You mostly just get. You get for the, for the law that's moving through Parliament. You get a couple of little asides at different points in the book. Just like telling you, you know, this is. This is the law that's making its way through Parliament. Here are changes that have been made to the law to get around loopholes that Mrs. Green may or may not have figured out when somebody tried to evict her from the old house. And then the. And those are kind of presented as, you know, Mrs. Gamart's nephew is a Member of Parliament. But who can say if these things are related?

[Craig]

I don't know.

[Andrew]

But yeah, you just. You understand from the jump, because that party chapter I talked about is pretty early that, like, this is the thing that Mrs. Gomart wants and she has taken it upon herself to get in a right old huff about being defied.

[Craig]

Okay, sure.

[Andrew]

And so you just, like, even, Even when the, like with the. The government people who come in to inspect the school, like. No, it's not explicit that Mrs. Gamart, like, set in motion a chain of events that led to this happening, but the book is like, it has been a long time since anybody from this government office came here to do this job, and suddenly someone is here and they've taken in a special interest in the child who happens to work in the bookshop. Great, okay, so, you know, the reader. The reader can connect the dots pretty easily. I mean, it's not that Florence doesn't know that Mrs. Gamart doesn't like her, but.

[Craig]

Yes, but she does.

[Andrew]

But she doesn't. But she doesn't care. She doesn't. She doesn't care.

[Craig]

And what you said earlier, there's neither. It sounds like there is neither a scene where she is like, oh, no, it was you all along. Nor is there a. Her running to Ms. Kamar being like, stop this madness.

[Andrew]

Yeah. With the law especially, I think Florence is never, like, Florence does not know why that law is coming.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

It's just like the system working against her. And like, what are you, like, kind of, what are you gonna do about it?

[Craig]

Yep, yep, yep. Because I think that matters, like, thematically to the novel. Right? It's. It's not just a, like, tete. A tete between these two women, even though that is part of it.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

I mean, it feels like it bubbles up bigger or something.

[Andrew]

You meant. You mentioned the thing about the exterminators and exterminate Exterminatees earlier and that. That is a thing that appears in this. In this book. It's. It's right when that after that confrontation at the Mrs. Gomart's party has happened. Where this is from Florence's point of view, no doubt it was absurd to imagine that she was being driven out and that the hand of privilege was impelling her to Deben's wet fish shop. She blinded herself, in short, by pretending for a while that human beings are not divided into exterminators and exterminatees. With the former at any given moment. Predominating willpower is useless without a sense of direction. Hers was at such a low ebb that it no longer gave her the instructions for survival. So that's. She's at a low point, but then she goes on to open the bookshop anyway. But I think the book is. The book is pretty upfront that like, she is, she's meddling with, with forces that are, that are bigger than her and eventually she's gonna fail in this endeavor in some way because she's not supposed to. Because she's not the right kind of person.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And she's not. And she's not currying favor with the right kind of people.

[Craig]

She's just doing it for herself and she's not doing it for status and.

[Andrew]

Yes. And she, and she's swimming upstream in that. And. Yeah. So like, any, any hope of this book being like one. What I said before, like a, A book about how great books are. Yeah. Or a book about how a bookshop in a, in a small hardscrabble town creates a sense of unlikely community or whatever and binds everybody together. Like. No, that's not. Also not what happens. That's the opposite of what happens. So Florence ends up. She is. She's in the process of being evicted when this old, you know, the, the older gentleman who I mentioned before, who.

[Craig]

I guess the Bill Nighy character from.

[Andrew]

The film, probably, possibly who had invited Florence to his house and like she consulted him about the Lolita thing and he's, he sees some kind of like, kinship, like he sees somebody that he can make common cause with, but it's not. Yeah. Brundish, I think is his name.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

But it is, it is not as though they have, like, they just have the one scene together. He barely knows her, but he's like taking it upon himself to try to be supportive of what she's doing. So he does something he has not done in a long, long time. He leaves his house to go to Mrs. Gamart's house and he's obviously in some kind of severe, like she's having some kind of a health related episode this whole time that he's going. But he is, he's gone to Mrs. Gamart's house to yell at her and to say, you gotta leave Florence green alone. And Mrs. Gamart, who, she, she doesn't get her husband because the book says that she is like, grown accustomed to just like treating her husband like he doesn't exist. And so it's just her and this guy Brundish. Talking. And she says to him, hasn't it occurred to you, as someone who must care so much for the welfare and the heritage of this place, that a building of such historical interest could be put to a better use? This was a false move. Mr. Brundish didn't care at all about the welfare or the heritage of Hardboro. He was, in a sense, Hardborough. It never occurred to him whether he cared or not. Old age is not the same thing as historical interest, he said. Otherwise we should both of us be more interesting than we are. And then there's another zinger that he delivers at the end where. Let me. Let me pull the quote up real quick, because I don't want to butcher it.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

But he. He goes to her house to demand that she leave Florence Green alone. And then as he is walking back to his house from that encounter, he falls over and he dies.

[Craig]

Oh, no.

[Andrew]

No. So nobody knows that this has happened except for Mrs. Gamart. And as you might imagine, Mrs. Gamart does not take it upon herself to tell anybody that this has happened.

[Craig]

Oh, no.

[Andrew]

Mrs. Gamart says, but you mustn't speak to me like that, Mr. Brundish. You can't realize what you're saying. You must think me outrageous. Is that it? I find I cannot answer either yes or no. By outrageous, I take it that you mean unexpectedly offensive. Certainly who have been offensive, Mrs. Kamart. But you have been exactly as I expected. Whoa. Okay, then don't get on, Mrs. Gamart. But, yeah, he dies and Mrs. Gamart gets what she wants and Florence is evicted and she is basically driven out of town entirely because everybody kind of knows that she is this woman who ran afoul of the powers that be and had this failed business and is having trouble paying back a bank loan. As the train drew out of the station, she sat with her head bowed in shame because the town in which she had lived for nearly 10 years had not wanted a bookshop. The end. So she never. She never gets to know that she had, like, the confidence and the backing of this. Of this powerful older man in town, and that she was within, like, a hair's breadth of everything being fine.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

She does not know the full extent of Mrs. Gamart's finagling, though I'm sure, you know, if she thought about it, it does seem like Mrs. Gamart got everything she wanted. So, you know, surely that's not a coincidence. Yeah, but, yeah, it just seemed like she wanted to open a bookshop and the town didn't want a bookshop, and so she was not allowed to open and have a bookshop for very long.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

It's open for a couple of years. All things all told.

[Craig]

Oh, yeah. I wanted to go double. Yeah. Okay. Huh. Well, that's a bummer.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

But, like, it's like she's rejected. Like a bad skin graft or something. Like she's not from there. Right. Like, she, it's, it's a, it's a.

[Andrew]

Little bit not from there. Like, again, like, maybe if I knew more about the, like, British society at the time, I would, I would be able to pick up one more of. More of that.

[Craig]

If there's extra class stuff happening.

[Andrew]

Yeah, there's extra class stuff. Or if there's a she's she's only been here 10 years, she's not from here thing. Or if it's. Or lost my train of thought. But that's okay.

[Craig]

Yeah, I mean, but I mean, the, the Gamart character is like a, you know.

[Andrew]

Oh, yeah. I was just like, I, I don't think for, for the purposes of, like, the main overarching story, it's particularly important. Like, what, what class? Or Florence could be almost anybody.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

And the point is that she is trying to, like, be. Trying to do something that she wants and, like, go above whatever her perceived station is. Like, that's definitely the, the class thing at play. I don't know if the residency thing is, like, part of that, but.

[Craig]

Sure. Okay.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

But it does, but it does, it does end with her, like, rejection, not just by Gamart, but also by, like, the town and the community. Like, there's nobody who is rallying around her in this, in this moment.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

And there are a couple people who, like, subtly betray her or, like, don't come to her aid. Who could have. And so, like, not only does she get evicted, but, like, she never gets paid anything because some provision of the act that gets passed in Parliament also says that if the house has, like, water damage or is falling apart in any way, it doesn't. It's not worth anything. And so the person living there doesn't have to be paid anything. Again, just like, laser focused on this one house and this one community, this one lady wants.

[Craig]

Wow.

[Andrew]

Yeah. So it's, it's rough, but yeah, that's. That's pretty much the book. I don't have a ton else to say about it. I brought a lot of examples of prose.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

Because I wanted to read some of the sick, like, the sick upper class zingers that are in, that are in here.

[Craig]

That, that Is like part of her reputation.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And also just to like, the book does not read like quite as much of a bummer as I think it is. And it is because the language is. Yeah, it's like, it's economical and it's light and it's got a sense of humor and it, you know, it has a. It has a funny way of describing bad situations.

[Craig]

Sure. Yep.

[Andrew]

And so it is. So it's like an interesting and entertaining thing to read. Even if, like, the plot, like the, the. The journey from A to B is, is. Is kind of sad. It sure kind of ends badly for everybody.

[Craig]

I have a few reviews to share. I. I can't remember which.

[Andrew]

I don't have my guitar on me, so I can just. I'll do acapella.

[Craig]

Okay, that's fine.

[Andrew]

If these are reviews from the place and of the nature that I'm thinking of.

[Craig]

Yes. From Suffolk. Yeah. I can't, I can't remember where it was. I don't know if it was in the obituary, if it was in another article I read that, you know, like other authors have given her a comp to someone like Austin just in her. Just like what you wind up liking about the language as she is, you know, depicting these scenes regardless of what the emotional, like, impact of them is.

[Andrew]

I think like for a modern reader here, there's less of a barrier to entry than there is with Austin. With her. Yeah, you're just like, there's so much stylistic stuff that's different that your brain takes a minute to adjust to it. But yeah, I get what you're saying.

[Craig]

Similar set of concerns. I think like kind of like an Austin of her age type of thing is I think what people have said. I want to share some remarks from nora in our patreon.com overdue pod discord. Nora said, I listened to the audiobook last week without knowing a single thing about it, including the year it was published. It initially seemed like a late 2010s cozy, charming, small town nostalgia story.

[Andrew]

That's what I thought it was going to be.

[Craig]

So the ending and I think your notes about the tone kind of allow that feeling to pervade. Right.

[Andrew]

It's like if you were writing a story that was about that and you were using this tone, it would be totally not out of place at all. Like it would fit.

[Craig]

Well, the ending genuinely shocked me, says Nora. Surely she was supposed to win everyone over and fall in love with an old grump or something.

[Andrew]

Yeah, that's what you think.

[Craig]

It makes a lot more sense she says, once I realized the book is from the 1970s and not the 2000s. It's a scathing critique of the fairly recent past, not nostalgia for a simpler time. Yeah, and you can also think too like I I'd be interested to know if any of our listeners have more lived experience or other just kind of literary experience with this era of Britain, this like post war era that Fitzgerald is writing about, because I'm sure that's part of gamart's whole like ambition is this, you know, we're only a decade out of the war and how can I lay claim to what is available to me to lay claim to as as a social symbol sort of stuff. I do have some some reviews, Andrew. They're from a website called Goodreads and they are all 3 stars out of.

[Andrew]

5 star goodreads are ding A ding.

[Craig]

Ding ding ding ding ding. That's the guitar underneath it.

[Andrew]

G chord, D chord, G chord.

[Craig]

Lacy says the word that came to mind to describe the bookshop is damp. My spirits were certainly dampened after reading this short novel about the damp old house that fought for a chance to be a bookshop, which was located in Harborough, a small English town sandwiched between sea and river, and shouted perpetually in a damp fog. Damp book, huh?

[Andrew]

It's a damp book.

[Craig]

Okay. Good to read the E Edition, I suppose then. Yeah, I mean, don't get your.

[Andrew]

Well, I mean the Kindle.

[Craig]

The Kindle's waterproof.

[Andrew]

The Kindle's waterproof. It's a newer one, so I don't have to worry about it. But if I had an older model, yeah, definitely. You'd not want anything to get into the little USB port.

[Craig]

Joy D. Who sounds like she should start her own Sunny D brand in my opinion.

[Andrew]

Or like it's the band Joy Division writing reviews on Goodreads and they are kind of trying to go under the radar about it.

[Craig]

This book is not a cozy read about a bookstore. This is an excerpt.

[Andrew]

Everybody just tricked everybody. Because I think the modern editions of it even have like a little like pastel y, like modern book cover. And everybody's like, oh, this, this is going to be just what I want to wrap up under a blanket with. And it is not. It is not that this book is.

[Craig]

Not a cozy read about a bookstore. It is a sad story of jealousy and scheming against a person who has done nothing wrong. It is a short book and a quick read. It was published in 1978. Nominated for the Booker Prize. The story is nicely written But I never fully engaged with it and I have more on that in just a second. But yes, a lot of the Goodreads reviewers, this is not their favorite Fitzgerald. I think a lot of folks find more to like about Offshore. Perhaps it is less depressing. I guess. I don't know about that book.

[Andrew]

I'm up for going back. Like, I like this book a lot.

[Craig]

People cited like similar, you know, style similar pro, like liking the prose but that they found this one too much of a bummer. Frin says sometimes a book ends in such a depressing way that I struggle to recall what went before. This is one of those books. I did enjoy most of it. The author writes really well. The dialogue is skillfully done and she's. Florence is portrayed as an intelligent, brave and resourceful woman. And there's a lot of enjoyment in the way she takes on the oppositional town people. This makes it all the more surprising when right at the end of the book things take an unexpected turn. It is a realistic ending and one which helped get the book listed for an award. Sadly for me, it was not my kind of an ending. I like. Like, if you think that you could take the version of this book but then like, well, what's the award winning ending? Let's. Let's just bracket on the sad ending. How did you feel about Florence overall? I couldn't find a good example review. There were folks who felt like they had trouble connecting with her. You mentioned that we never get like a. I personally am like intrigued by a novel that's like, you don't really need to know why she wants a bookstore so much.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

But that did seem to be a stumbling block for some people.

[Andrew]

I. Yeah, like there is. Things just kind of happen to, to Florence a lot of the time. And that's, you know, some of that's part of the point of the book is just that there, there are these forces that she's. She's too small to fight back against that have become arrayed against her. But I kind of, I, I almost disagree with the description of her as like, what was it?

[Craig]

Intelligent, brave and resourceful.

[Andrew]

Yeah. It's not that those things don't exist, but it's certainly, she's certainly not super resourceful. I don't, I don't think like she, her biggest success, the Lolita thing, she kind of stumbles into and doesn't even like know to like, she can't even make that decision on her own because I feel like she doesn't, she doesn't have enough conviction about like the books themselves. I think she, she is pretty good at. She, she. And then Christine too are like, not bad at like running the little library and just like getting stuff for people that they want. And there's a description in here of how she has to buy books from the publishers where like, if she wants the books people really, really want, those are A books, and then B books are ones that are fine, and then C books are ones that are just gonna sit in your bookshop literally forever because nobody wants them. And she has, she has to accept a certain number of like B and C books to get the A books.

[Craig]

Huh. Okay.

[Andrew]

But. And then there's like one sequence where she buys a bunch of like beautiful like handcrafted Chinese bookmarks for way too much money and then accidentally sells them for like a tenth of what she paid for them because Christine interpreted the, the currency symbol incorrectly. Oh no, them for two. It sold them for too cheap. Like, she's not a particularly good businesswoman and I don't. She doesn't really know where to turn for business advice and doesn't seem interested. Like she's actively uninterested in it.

[Craig]

Okay, okay.

[Andrew]

Because she doesn't like to think about it because it worries her.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

But I'm like.

[Craig]

But she still wants to connect with people through the bookshop.

[Andrew]

I guess she wants to connect with people, but she mostly kind of lets Christine do a lot of stuff. I, I don't know. Like she, she's, she's, she's a bit of an enigma. And you do want to root for her because she is, she, she just, she just wants to, she just wants to be a small business owner.

[Craig]

It's Small Business Saturday. We're rooting for Florence.

[Andrew]

Yeah. That's just kind of what she wants to do. And you, you want her to succeed. There's nothing like, there's nothing bad about Florence. She's not like a nasty person.

[Craig]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andrew]

Like I said in the beginning of the book, she's, she's, she had a kind heart, though that is not a much use when it comes to the matter of self preservation. That's basically Florence.

[Craig]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andrew]

Well intentioned. She has this thing she wants to do, but she is sort of in. Incapable of being or unwilling to be strategic about any of the decisions that she wants to make. And so, you know, when her fortunes rise and fall, it's kind of just her there to reap the rewards and whatever the opposite of reward, the punishments.

[Craig]

The reaping and the sowing. Yeah, yeah. It sort of seems like the point of the book is that she's not an extraordinary person. It is to Fitzgerald's goal that she is, like, a little more ordinary. And then here's what the system does to her. Just because she had a little dream.

[Andrew]

Yeah, right. Is that I do like, it does capture in. In one moment where she's in talking to the. The banker guy about the loan that she's not. She's definitely not like an idealistic head in the clouds.

[Craig]

Oh, sure. Okay.

[Andrew]

Like book lover about it. She's talking about. What else do people think the old house could be used for? Why haven't they done anything about it in the past seven years? Would it be better as a place where people could stand and look at books? Are you talking about culture? The manager said in a voice halfway between pity and respect. Culture is for amateurs. I can't run my shop at a loss. Shakespeare was a professional. So, yeah, she literally just does want to run it. She wants to run a business.

[Craig]

Yeah, why not?

[Andrew]

And, like, wouldn't it be nicer if there were a little bookshop there rather than a moldy old house?

[Craig]

Yeah, I bet it would. I bet it would. It would have been nice. I bet it would have been nice if not for the evil Ms. Gamart and the indifference of the universe.

[Andrew]

People need to. People don't need to dream bigger than that. It's okay just to have, like, your little thing that you want to do and then you go do it and it's nice.

[Craig]

Yes. Were we all so lucky that the thing we want to do could just work out a little bit?

[Andrew]

Yeah. Not here.

[Craig]

Not here.

[Andrew]

Womp womp.

[Craig]

Well, thanks for reading this womp womp book, Andrew.

[Andrew]

I had fun.

[Craig]

It sounds like it's a fun book except for the, like. Surprise.

[Andrew]

It's a fun book except for, like, the. The misfortune that befalls the main character at every step. Pretty much every step of the way after the. After the midpoint of the. Of the story.

[Craig]

Okay, then there's probably also more to.

[Andrew]

Say about the Lolita symbolism. Like, why the book Lolita that I'm just, like, not equipped to talk about?

[Craig]

Well, yeah, because I'd read it was like, Lolita and, like, there's some references to Ray Bradbury. Is that right?

[Andrew]

I do not remember.

[Craig]

Well, it might only been the film. I don't know. Because, like, it's. I know Lolita was published in 55 and the book is set in 59.

[Andrew]

Yeah, 59 into 60.

[Craig]

So some of it, I'm sure, is Just like she is somebody who is attuned to the literary world.

[Andrew]

It's not. She's not even that. It's that somebody wrote.

[Craig]

I mean, Fitzgerald was.

[Andrew]

Sorry, Fitzgerald. Okay, okay, okay, yes, yes.

[Craig]

Maybe, you know, she was trying to get literary magazines off the ground in the 50s, so I think. And she worked in a bookshop, so, like, she is aware of maybe what was going on in the 50s. But yeah, I'm sure there's something about the scandalousness of Lolita that is extra resonant. That's such a singular book, though. Like, if you said it in this time, it's right there for you.

[Andrew]

Sure is.

[Craig]

Woof, woof. Okay, well, thanks, Andrew.

[Andrew]

Yeah, you're welcome.

[Craig]

Thanks for taking me to Suffolk for a great time.

[Andrew]

I am all out of holiday creamy vanilla Coca Cola, zero sugar.

[Craig]

You gotta go get more.

[Andrew]

Sadly, it is time for our podcast to come to a close.

[Craig]

Send us an email. Overdue. Podmail.com is the address. You tell us what your favorite flavor of Coke Zero is. See if it's one of Andrew's favorites and if it still exists. You know, I don't know. Have they retired some of them, put their jerseys up in the rafters?

[Andrew]

Like, if I go to the Coca Cola store in Times Square or whatever, are they gonna have all the weird Cokes that they don't sell in time?

[Craig]

How do you feel about the mix machines, Andrew? I'm going to a Wawa or whatever.

[Andrew]

I feel like we've talked about this before. If I were rich, I would have a mix machine set up.

[Craig]

Great.

[Andrew]

I would have one room for the machine and then another room for all my syrups.

[Craig]

A whole room that's nothing else in it. Go in there, think.

[Andrew]

Well, I mean, there would be other stuff too, I guess. But then the syrup room is just the syrups. So you go in and see all your syrups.

[Craig]

Behold my syrups.

[Andrew]

Well, because you got so many of them and I bet there are like all kinds of weird, unnatural colors that would be fun to kind of look at with lighting. You can you. Yeah, you could. You could light it up. You could get some, like, clear sort of food, safe tubing so that whenever the syrups were kind of running through the tubes, you could. You could see them in action.

[Craig]

Yeah, exactly. Find us on social media at Overdue Podcast. Again, let us know if you're drinking a holiday creamy vanilla Coca Cola, zero sugar. Please don't actually hate the name.

[Andrew]

Where are my holiday creamers at? Because I. We all need to talk about this. This Coke flavor.

[Craig]

We're overdue POD is where you can find us. Our theme song is composed by Nick Larandis. Andrew. If folks want to know more about the show, where do they go?

[Andrew]

Overdue Podcast.com is our Internet website where we have the month's schedule. We have old books that we have read. We bunch of links. The stuff that Craig just mentioned. A bunch of things you could, you could learn about the show if you're new or if you just like, Forget stuff.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Patreon.com if you forget stuff. Patreon.com overdpod is the other URL. That is our other Internet website where you can give us money in exchange for extra stuff, including access to our Discord server where people talk about books and other things, bonus episodes, weird experimental things where we watch. Where we watch mostly films lately, but it could, you know, you never know what it's going to turn into.

[Craig]

You never know.

[Andrew]

Ad free episodes, newsletter, all kinds of other stuff. Patreon.com overdue pod if you already support us, thank you so much. If you're thinking about supporting us, thank you. In the future, I mean, I'm not going to give you a thank you you haven't earned, but like, it's there for you if you. If you take it.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

All right, Craig, what are you reading next? Well, what are we reading next week? Speaking of holiday. Creamy vanilla.

[Craig]

Yeah. That's what I've been thinking about for the last hour. Kidnapped by the Krampus by Emily Shore is a holiday novel that is not safe for work or kids.

[Andrew]

This is part of our long running for some reason. Happy Horny Days series.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Where one week in just one week every December, we get a little blue. A little Randy. I want a blue Christmas.

[Craig]

Oh, I get it. So, yeah, that's one to listen to.

[Andrew]

So there'd probably be like, cussing and like frank discussion of sex acts if I like. I have Craig's read more of this book than I have. But I just. Judging off of past precedent, I think that's probably what it's gonna end up being.

[Craig]

Oh, yeah. And some like, what are we doing with Christmas lore? Conversations.

[Andrew]

I love books that are like, what if people destroyed each other in the bedroom? But also there was lore.

[Craig]

Yeah, there's a lot.

[Andrew]

So I can't wait.

[Craig]

And there's a lot of destroying each other in the bedroom. This book is really unhinged. So we'll talk about it. You can't stop us. We're celebrating the holidays the only way we know how that is.

[Andrew]

The only way we know how. Please help us. Please help us find a different way to do it. All right, everybody, until we talk to you next week, please try to be happy. That was a Hitgum podcast.

[Nicole Byer]

Hi, I'm Nicole Byer. Hi, I'm Sasheer Zamada. And this is the podcast Best Friends, and we're here at Headgum. So this is just a podcast where we just talk? Yeah, we're best friends. Yeah, we talk, and then we have a segment where we answer questions and queries so audience members can ask questions about friendships and we can answer them to the best of our abilities. Yes, we are professional friends. We are professional friends. Subscribe to Best Friends on Spot, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Cast, or wherever you get your podcast. And watch videos on YouTube. New episodes drop every Wednesday. That's the middle of a work week. I was deeply unhelpful to you during that whole thing.

[Craig]

You were.

[Nicole Byer]

I'm really sorry. I was so. Okay. I was trying to be supportive.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Nicole Byer]

But I was like, I don't know. Reading seems pretty hard right now. It's a lot.

[Craig]

I think. You did good.

[Nicole Byer]

Thank you so much. You're welcome.