At the time I was reading Nourishment by Gerard Woodward, I happened to be reading Andrea Levy’s Small Island, a loan on the suggestion of my mother-in-law.  Levy’s book made its splash in 2004 and was made into a BBC TV drama in 2009.  I have little doubt that Woodward read Small Island, and the similarities between the two are books are notable.  A previously emotionally distant husband off in World War II, MIA/a POW, while the wife remains at their home in London during the Blitz.  She has an affair, awakening her to the joys of sexuality, and when the husband returns home, she has borne the other man’s child.  Both even include a double-decker bus scene!  This, however, is where the similarities end.

George’s tone in Nourishment is irreverent and fun, despite the serious subject matter spanning the lifetime of an English woman.  From concerns over eating the butcher after the butchery was bombed, to money troubles, and working as a lavatory attendant, George handles all of it with dry whimsy, which counters against Levy’s somber tone.

The blurb focuses primarily on the first part of the story, Tory Pace’s husband requesting some dirty letters while he a P.O.W.  While this is a pivotal situation for Tory’s life and many of the happenings further in the book rely on this motivator of events, it isn’t the focal point of the book.  The key, however, as any good poet knows, is in the title to provide a little more information, an opening into the piece.  Woodward has picked a perfect title, helping the reader to see what is threaded gently through the book, his theme of the different ways a human needs to be nourished, Maslow be damned!  Tory works to provide basic physical nourishment for her family, withholding it when she reaches the end of her patience.

Woodward makes a interesting point with the theme of this book.  Really, what are lives and relationships but each person trying to feed each level of their need hierarchy?  Intellectual, physical, sexual, emotional, nutritional, if these needs aren’t met, then people aren’t happy and do something, something that makes a plot, a story, a book.  Everything hinges on finding the right ways to nourish oneself.

Woodward’s tone in Nourishment is a fun read and the racy parts are modest enough to share with any sort of friend.  As someone who lives in Plymouth, I’m not entirely sure why London is the only British city that seems to get bombed in literature, but I’ll forgive Woodward’s London eye because of the thought-provoking, yet entertaining story he has given us.

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