Paul's Reviews > Unsettled Ground

“The different lives they could have lived are too big to comprehend.”
This was shortlisted for the women’s prize for fiction in 2021. It certainly resonated with me and I was pleasantly surprised by it. Set in rural England, it takes a clear look at the underside of society and the gaps that the vulnerable fall between. The novel revolves around Julius and Jeanie Seeder, fifty-one year old twins who have always lived with their mother Dot. Dot dies suddenly and their world and all they have begins to disintegrate, nothing that was certain now seems to be so. Julius does casual labour when he is able, they live rent free in a run-down cottage, a historical arrangement with the farmer who owns it, mysteriously linked to an incident in which their father died many years ago. Jeanie helps her mother and tends the vegetable patch. They are all musical and the family plays music together. Neither of the twins know much about money, Jeanie can neither read nor write. Her mother has told her she has a longstanding heart condition and must live a quiet life. The modern world and its complexities pass them by.
When Dot dies they discover debts they did not know existed and find it difficult to comprehend the complexities of managing a death and funeral. There is no money:
“They rarely discussed money in the past and it comes awkwardly now, and they never talked in any depth about the agreement, they know it simply as an arrangement that was negotiated between Dot and Rawson a year after their father’s death – an event that was only ever alluded to, all of them orbiting an incident so horrific they were unable to shift themselves closer.”
There is a cast of supporting characters, some friendly, many less so, all aspects of human personality are here. Jeanie and Julius don’t have a bank account, don’t receive any benefits and wouldn’t know how to claim them. They are part of an underclass who very much exist but who are mostly unseen.
Fuller writes well and the descriptive writing captures beauty as well as pathos:
“The morning sky lightens, and snow falls on the cottage. It falls on the thatch, concealing the moss and the mouse damage, smoothing out the undulations, filling in the hollows and slips, melting where it touches the bricks of the chimney. It settles on the plants and bare soil in the front garden and forms a perfect mound on top of the rotten gatepost, as though shaped from the inside of a teacup. It hides the roof of the chicken coop, and those of the privy and the old dairy, leaving a dusting across the workbench and floor where the window was broken long ago”
The journey Julius and Jeanie go through is a harrowing one involving living in a dilapidated and unsanitary caravan in the woods, a nasty eviction, issues with local thugs and real poverty. There are those who help along the way but the twins continue to resist help unless they absolutely have to. The ending has been much discussed and is often seen as bit of a let-down. I would disagree. Modern life does intrude at the end with some level of support with Occupational Therapy and Physiotherapy and some modernisation. The tension here is do these modern intrusions relieve and help or destroy. The answer is, of course both. But, abject poverty is not noble or fun. The other question relates to what happens to Julius and I am avoiding spoilers but many have said that his fate is cruel. A careful reading indicates that what did happen did not change his fate that was already set.
There are many people in our society like Jeanie and Julius and I meet the like on a regular basis. They fall through the cracks and often find modern life baffling and this novel does manage to illustrate the problems pretty effectively.