Unsettled Ground

St Just Thursday Evening Reading Group 6th June 2024.

Unsettled ground. Claire Fuller.

This book seemed to arouse quite a lot of strong feelings amongst the reading group, mostly concerning the characters: how awful Dot, the twins’ mother, seemed to have been; how sorry we felt for Jeanie, adrift, illiterate and misled; and how annoyed we were that the twins were left to sink or swim by the rest of the village, used as victims and generally not assisted in any meaningful way.

More than one reader commented upon the ‘antiquated’, ‘Dark Ages’, ‘1950s’, or ‘feudal’ atmosphere that seemed to pertain here, and the lack of any reference to housing benefit, universal credit, or the legal processes preceding eviction.

Dot having led Jeanie to think that she, Jeanie, had a dangerous heart condition, when Jeanie was perfectly healthy, amounted almost to child abuse, we thought, the lie being told in the interests of keeping Jeanie at home (along with her brother), for Dot’s own purposes.

This was an interesting read, but in general we were not really able to discern the point of the book. We didn’t see it as a very realistic portrayal of a modern rural area, or of village social interactions and politics. The character of Dot remained undeveloped, and therefore we couldn’t see the nature of her affair with Spencer, and how this affected the plot. Was the book an analogy for something, for some kind of wider issue? We couldn’t see one. Was it the sort of book which postulates one scenario and then proceeds to turn everything on its head? Not exactly. Was it about the personal development of the twins when thrown onto their own resources? Hardly, because the twins went from one bad situation to another, until Julius found himself in the intensive care unit and Jeanie living in the public lavatories by the side of the road; their actual talents and interests, which were music and growing vegetables, didn’t really take off or help them very much. Their roles as victims was perhaps overdone, we thought. Some readers saw uplifting elements at the end, when Saffron and Spencer helped the twins to a more reasonable lifestyle.

We did appreciate that this book is generally well thought of and won a Costa book award, and we saw a lot going on in it, not least the position of those who struggle with literacy. But it left us slightly puzzled as to the motivation behind it, and also as to whether its elements came together in a very convincing fashion.

Unsettled Ground tells the story of a family bound together by tragedy. Dot, the matriarch, has always had a clear set of rules that the family have to live by. Since the death of her husband she has lived in a remote cottage with her twins, Jeanie and Julius. Self-sufficient, they have always shied away from village life. However, when Dot dies of a stroke she leaves the twins alone for the first time in their lives.
Jeanie and Julius are fifty-one, but have never lived apart. They are - for reasons that become clear - quite dependent on one another. After the unexpected death of their mother they come to learn just how harshly life can treat you.
Upon their mother’s death they learn that she wasn’t entirely honest about their situation. They find themselves with ‘friends’ demanding money to repay debts they didn’t know they had. Soon they find themselves evicted from the one family home they know, and scrabbling to survive.
It is clear that both Jeanie and Julius have difficulties in living a normal life. Jeanie can’t read or write, but the spirit and resolve each shows is quite remarkable. Sadly, their self-reliance seems unnecessary and as the book progresses - and we learn more about their history - it is painfully apparent that this need not have been their life.
As soon as I began reading I was struck by the beauty of the writing about the everyday experiences. Though focusing on a very miserable subject, there was an inner strength to this that I couldn’t help but admire. It reminded me in parts of Bruce Chatwin’s On the Black Hill, and left me with a similar feeling of unease upon finishing.

Enjoyed this one. Claire Fuller writes so well that to start with I thought I was reading literary fiction and expected to be challenged by the content. The story, however, turns out to be quite commercial and disappointingly predictable. Nevertheless, it's a good read and kept me engaged throughout