Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Bilgewater
    Unavailable
    Bilgewater
    Unavailable
    Bilgewater
    Ebook249 pages3 hours

    Bilgewater

    By Jane Gardam

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Originally published in 1977, Jane Gardam's Bilgewater is an affectionate and complex rendering-in-miniature of the discomforts of growing up and first love seen through the eyes of inimitable Marigold Green, an awkward, eccentric, highly intelligent girl. The Evening Standard described Bilgewater as "one of the funniest, most entertaining, most unusual stories about young love."

    Motherless and 16, Marigold is the headmaster's daughter at a private backwater all-boys school. To make matters worse, Marigold pines for head boy Jack Rose, reckons with the beautiful and domineering Grace, and yanks herself headlong out of her interior world and into the seething cauldron of adolescence. With everything happening all at once, Marigold faces the greatest of teenage crucibles. 

    A smart and painterly romp in the rich tradition of The Hollow Land and A Long Way From Verona, Gardam's elegant, evocative prose, possessed of sharp irony and easy surrealism makes Bilgewater a book for readers of all ages.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEuropa Editions
    Release dateJun 7, 2016
    ISBN9781609453381
    Unavailable
    Bilgewater

    Read more from Jane Gardam

    Related to Bilgewater

    Related ebooks

    Literary Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      My Best Friend

      Oct 1, 2020

      My Best Friend
      6 min read

    • Article

      A Puzzle Of Nostalgia

      Aug 26, 2022

      A Puzzle Of Nostalgia
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Letterbox

      May 1, 2019

      Dear Everybuggy, Last time I wrote to you, I lived in North Carolina, but we have moved. We live in Virginia now. I love Cricket! I like space. I’m homeschooled and like to look at our map. I’ve discovered towns like Philadelphia in Mississippi! Phil

      7 min read

    • Article

      The Last Friend on Earth

      May 4, 2023

      It was as if Doreen Saunders had been waiting for me, passing the time until my arrival. She might as well have been sitting in a rocking chair, knitting needles clicking, jam tarts cooling on the side, the door wide open, waiting for the next visito

      6 min read

    • Article

      Peyton Burgess

      Mar 9, 2021

      Sometimes PB to my students, Sack to my friends, and always Pete to my family, my name is Peter Burgundy and I worry that death has been my only inspiration to be a better person—that death has had a way of making life understandable. And oh whoa, ho

      30 min read

    • Article

      Little House

      Jun 5, 2023

      On Monday nights our mother made popcorn and served it to us in mugs with milk poured over. My younger sister and I carried our mugs into the family room and ate the popcorn with spoons, like cereal. We were five and seven. Until we were allowed to s

      21 min read

    • Article

      Yellow Summer Rain

      May 19, 2022

      Yellow Summer Rain
      23 min read

    • Article

      In the Grass

      Jun 3, 2019

      In the Grass
      23 min read

    • Article

      Tales of Two Cities

      Jun 4, 2021

      Tales of Two Cities
      4 min read

    • Article

      On Aging

      Mar 1, 2022

      On Aging
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Posting

      Jun 27, 2023

      The Posting
      35 min read

    • Article

      Alison Hammond

      Jun 6, 2022

      Alison Hammond
      5 min read

    • Article

      Dolly’s Star Turn

      Jul 12, 2023

      Dolly’s Star Turn
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Letterbox

      Mar 1, 2020

      Dear Cricket, Hello! I absolutely love the one and only Cricket magazine. My little sister gets them, and I like to read them to her. I’ve always wanted to publish a story in your magazine, but my older sister (I have six) says I’d have to be older.

      7 min read

    • Article

      A Lost Cause

      Dec 6, 2020

      A Lost Cause
      9 min read

    • Article

      Shanda

      Jan 1, 2024

      Shanda
      13 min read

    • Article

      Locals

      Jun 11, 2021

      Locals
      26 min read

    • Article

      Dolly’s Star Turn

      Jul 12, 2023

      Dolly’s Star Turn
      7 min read

    • Article

      Dolly’s Star Turn

      Aug 9, 2023

      Dolly’s Star Turn
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Plague Legends

      Dec 1, 2021

      The Plague Legends
      12 min read

    Reviews for Bilgewater

    3.5/5

    74 ratings9 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      A most delightful book. All I remember from reading it many years ago was that I loved it and a reread confirms that memory. Another story of an odd, eccentric, but fearfully intelligent, adolescent growing up in Yorkshire in the seventies (I've just reread "Oranges are not the only fruit" and "Bilgewater" covers similar territory). It's a story of difference, trying (and failing) to fit in and finding ones own self. It's also very funny - as well as carrying a dire warning "BEWARE OF SELF PITY". Bilgewater is the nickname of Marigold Green, who's mother died giving birth to her, growing up with her widowed father in the boys school where he's a teacher. But there's lots more to the story and I can only suggest you read it to find out...
    • 4/5
      Marigold Green is a wonderful name. Not so wonderful when your father's name is Bill. Marigold adopts the unavoidable nickname of Bilgewater as a result (Bill's + daughter = Bilgewater). As so begin's Gardam's story about teenage angst from the point of view of Marigold Green. Because her father is the housemaster to the boys of a boarding school, Marigold has a lot to be anxious about. Having lost her mother at birth, Marigold is naive when it comes to friendships, fashion, relationships with the opposite sex, and even alcohol. She had never seen drunk people before the age of 18. The one thing she does know is literature and many different works are reference throughout the story.
    • 3/5
      Not sure about this one. Seemed like a weird kind of romantic fiction, with a nice tied up happy ending. Not really my cuppa tea.
    • 3/5
      Marigold is the bright (but dyslexic) daughter of a housemaster in a boys' school. The book is about her teenage years, her growing awareness of how other people live, and her honest thoughts. Oddly written in places, but enjoyable anyway.
    • 4/5
      An endearing coming of age story about Marigold Green (Bilgewater) set in a seaside town in North Yorkshire in the 1970's.The world in which the story is set feels almost historical, being written over 30 years ago, and the characters appear almost naive in their inability to understand emotions (indeed, this may be because Marigold's mother died in childbirth and Marigold may be autistic, having a great mathematical mind, although she does not know how she does it).This is my second reading and, although it can be read as light romantic fiction, it is written with great warmth and literary flair. I really did empathise with the characters, however strangely they acted. It might almost be melodrama, but it did have emotional depth. An enjoyable read.
    • 4/5
      A long time since I read it or any Jane Gardam, but I remember loving it to pieces. Possibly the weirdest of her books, but the joy of reading it has stuck with me for years.PS. I re-read it more recently and I've downgraded my rating of it from 5 stars. It has a magical quality but it's a bit meandering.
    • 2/5
      Well that was a strange read. I'm not sure if a high-school aged person would enjoy it, but is that who it was written for? I found I couldn't really empathise with the main character, she was simply mad.Still, I always enjoy books set in northern England.
    • 4/5
      Marigold’s father is house master at a boys’ school, so to the boys Marigold is known as Bill’s Daughter, which devolves into the nickname Bilgewater. This book tells of Marigold’s awkward teenage years, of friends and frenemies and crushes and first love.For the first half or two-thirds of this book, not much happens — and then a great many things happen all at once. It’s hard to explain or summarize, but it has a certain charm. I’d recommend this to fans of Muriel Spark. As for me, I enjoyed it, but probably won’t seek out other books by this author.
    • 5/5
      I would have read this in one go but I had to repeatedly stop because I was laughing so hard. Right from the start, that bit about the teacher who cannot face forward, and later the bit where Bilge finds she's walked right through the house… these things will never leave me. Gardam has a way of making me know what something must look like without actually describing it.I also loved the Cinderella set-up. I grew up watching Star Wars (my name's Luke, so you can see what my parents had just seen, back in 1978. Could have been worse. They could have been Tolkien fans), so love finding this myth reused, and reused so well here with the twisted Fairy Godmother / Merlin character in Grace and the unexpected farce of the ending.Amazingly, I had never heard of Gardam. I'm relatively well informed about writers, but never a whisper. Who's in charge here? Why isn't her name being bellowed from rooftops? Why didn't they make me read this at school? I googled her halfway through, only to find that she's one of the most respected writers working today. This may be my fault… I notice from the stats on this site that most of the people I read are European men. Of the women, the vast majority I had discovered because some kind Bookcrosser had set her book free, as is the case here. I think I have been subconsciously choosing books by people who are like me. Thank God for Bookcrossing!