Tory Pace’s husband is a Prisoner of War in World War II. When she receives a request from him for spicy letters she is at a loss but soon finds herself on a journey of discovery of carnal desire in the libraries, public conveniences and barber shops of South East London. Meanwhile life carries on, her husband returns home and then she makes a shocking discovery. A lovely story which captures that great ‘British upper lip’.
With her children evacuated and her husband at the front, Tory Pace is grudgingly sharing the family home with her irascible mother; working at the local gelatine factory - to help the war effort - and generally doing just about as well as could be expected in difficult times. Her quiet life is thrown into turmoil, however, when her prisoner-of-war husband, Donald, makes an outrageous demand for sexual gratification. He wants a dirty letter, by return of post! Horrified, at first, that Donald is being turned into some sort of monster by the Nazis, Tory's disgust gradually gives way to a sense of marital duty, and taking in the libraries, bookshops, public conveniences and barbers' shops of South-East London, she begins a quest to master the language of carnal desire: a quest that takes a sudden and unexpected turn into far more dangerous territory. Beginning with an act of unintentional cannibalism, and flirting with a scheme to end world hunger by the use of protein pills, Nourishment ranges widely across the Continent and yet always returns home: to family, to people, to relationships. Woodward offers a prescient examination of the ways in which we both nurture and consume each other in the face of adversity.
Gerard Woodward lives in Bath. His first novel, August, was published in 2001 to great acclaim, and he has also written three award-winning collections of poetry. When he is not writing, Gerard refills the chocolate machines at Manchester University.
