Winner of the 1996 Whitbread Award for Fiction; shortlisted for the 1996 Booker Prize.
This is a loss of innocence story set on the doomed Titanic. The title referring to the situation in a disaster when (presumably after 'woman and children first') everyone is entitled to do their best to save their own life. But the phrase is used in the novel by the antagonist Scurra who, having had sex with the protagonist's love interest, tells him that all is fair in matters of the heart (or rather the genitals).
The story is narrated by the protagonist, Morgan, a young male first-class passenger. Helpfully from the point of view of the novelist he is not only rich, being related to J Pierpoint Morgan whose companies controlled the White Star Line who owned the Titanic, but also an orphan whom JPM rescued from poverty, and furthermore an apprentice draughtsman who had worked on the Titanic's design; this threefold background enables him to have connections to all levels of the ship and yet to be at home nowhere. He is naive around women (there is the suggestion that he is not a virgin after experiences in brothels but he is hopeless with women 'of his own class') an one of the plot elements is his farcical wooing of Wallis. The antagonist Scurra is a mystery man who seems to move at will in all spheres; he knows some of the secrets of Morgan's background but pre-empts Morgan with Wallis.
Told in the first person past tense; nevertheless a significant part of what drives the reader onwards is not knowing whether Morgan will survive the shipwreck. It also has some superb descriptions (see Selected Quotes).
Beryl Bainbridge is author of a number of novels, those reviewed in this blog have links.
- A Weekend with Claude (1967)
- Another Part of the Wood (1968, revised 1979)
- Harriet Said... (1972)
- The Dressmaker (1973) – shortlisted for Booker Prize
- The Bottle Factory Outing (1974) – shortlisted for Booker Prize, won the Guardian Fiction Prize
- Sweet William (1975)
- A Quiet Life (1976)
- Injury Time (1977) - winner, Whitbread Prize
- Young Adolf (1978)
- Another Part of the Wood (revised edn) (1979)
- Winter Garden (1980)
- Watson's Apology (1984)
- Filthy Lucre (1986)
- An Awfully Big Adventure (1989) – shortlisted for Booker Prize
- The Birthday Boys (1991)
- Every Man for Himself (1996) – shortlisted for Booker Prize, winner of the Whitbread Prize
- Master Georgie (1998) – shortlisted for Booker Prize
- According to Queeney (2001)
- The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress (2011)
- “Then the water, first slithering, then tumbling, gushed us apart ...” (Prologue)
- “My aunt held that the rich, having a heightened sense of property, were bound to feel such betrayals [theft by a servant] more keenly than the poor.” (One)
- “He did have layers, but like an onion they were all the same.” (Two)
- “I'd seen productions of Madame Butterfly on many occasions ... and always found the story unconvincing and sentimental. Who can believe that a woman, and a Japanese one at that, is capable of such passion?” (Three)
- “It's bunkum to suppose we can be touched by tragedies other than our own.” (Three)
- “I was left, a blind voyeur, scrabbling for memories to blot out the continuing din of their beastly coupling.” (Four)
- “I jerked like a rabbit in a trap as the sliver of ice slid further down my spine.” (Five)
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