Nourishment

From the moment Tory Pace's mother serves up a joint of meat that may well be the blown-off leg of the local butcher, whose shop took a direct hit from a German bomb, it's clear that Gerard Woodward's Nourishment is going to be a darkly humorous novel. The setting is World War Two, and Londoner Tory leads a cheerless life: her three children are evacuated, her conscripted husband is missing, presumed dead; she spends her days working in a gelatine factory and her evenings with her live-in mother, with whom she has a fractious relationship.

But it soon turns out her husband is alive, held captive in a prisoner of war camp, and when he writes to Tory asking for a dirty letter to help him through his imposed sexual fast, Tory has a decision to make.

In fact, this request is merely a catalyst for Woodward's exploration of marital relationships and the place of women in society during the 1940s. With a subtle hand, Woodward deftly shows the prejudices faced by women of the time, the repressed sexual desires, and the mental and physical hardships that they must bear without complaint, due to the attitudes of men. But slowly, in her own way, Tory grasps tiny triumphs as she finds her way through life.

Funny, sad, quirky, Nourishment is a stylish novel from a distinctive voice.