In a depressed town on England’s eastern coast, Florence Green is determined to open a bookstore. She has the building. She has the stock. Unfortunately, she also has a very powerful woman as her enemy. In Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Bookshop, we watch Florence experience the highs and lows of being a book peddler.
Old House, in the middle of Hardborough, has a reputation for being haunted. So of course this is the place Florence chooses for her shop. After she finagles a loan out of a patronizing bank manager, it seems like the bookshop is a go. But then Florence is invited to the Stead, the home of the local gentry. Violet Gamart informs her that she plans to turn the Old House into an arts center.
The Bookshop is full of Florence and Violet’s battle of wills, as well as the relationships Florence builds with the local curmudgeon, a hilariously capable but no-nonsense 11-year-old assistant, and others. This book had the potential to be another tale of bookish warm fuzziness, but the fighting between Florence and Violet gets very serious when Violet calls in the lawyers. Violet refuses to cede ground to Florence, no matter how much good Florence’s books do for people.
This novella ended up being a lot sadder than I was expecting, even with the poltergeist. Perhaps it’s because I don’t know what to expect from Fitzgerald; perhaps this is what she does in her books. It’s certainly not as saccharine as The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry (which I love anyway) or The Little Paris Bookshop. Readers who want a happy ending should look elsewhere. Readers who want a more realistic quirkily bookish novel may enjoy reading about Florence’s triumphs and travails.