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

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

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.

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).

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)

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.

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.

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.

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.