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The Cast Iron Shore
(Sybil Ross has been brought up by her Jewish furrier father and style-obsessed mother to be an empty-headed fashion plate. But on the worst night of Liverpool's blitz she uncovers a secret that leaves her disorientated and eventually leads her to the very edge of America and a final choice)
400 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
About the author
Linda Grant
79 books176 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads' database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Linda Grant was born in Liverpool on 15 February 1951, the child of Russian and Polish Jewish immigrants. She was educated at the Belvedere School (GDST), read English at the University of York, completed an M.A. in English at MacMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario and did further post-graduate studies at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada, where she lived from 1977 to 1984.
In 1985 she returned to Britain and became a journalist. From 1995 to 2000 she was a feature writer for the Guardian, where between 1997 and 1998 she also had a weekly column in G2. She contributed regularly to the Weekend section on subjects including the background to the use of drug Ecstasy (for which she was shortlisted for the UK Press Gazette Feature Writer of the Year Award in 1996), body modification, racism against Romanies in the Czech Republic, her own journey to Jewish Poland and to her father's birthplace and during the Kosovo War, an examination of the background to Serb nationalism.
Linda Grant was born in Liverpool on 15 February 1951, the child of Russian and Polish Jewish immigrants. She was educated at the Belvedere School (GDST), read English at the University of York, completed an M.A. in English at MacMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario and did further post-graduate studies at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada, where she lived from 1977 to 1984.
In 1985 she returned to Britain and became a journalist. From 1995 to 2000 she was a feature writer for the Guardian, where between 1997 and 1998 she also had a weekly column in G2. She contributed regularly to the Weekend section on subjects including the background to the use of drug Ecstasy (for which she was shortlisted for the UK Press Gazette Feature Writer of the Year Award in 1996), body modification, racism against Romanies in the Czech Republic, her own journey to Jewish Poland and to her father's birthplace and during the Kosovo War, an examination of the background to Serb nationalism.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
May 25, 2018
Having read all of Linda Grant's novels except this, her first, I was disappointed to find I struggled through long and tedious sections about politics. Written in the first person, Sybil is not a sympathetic character in any way. Her good looks are maybe an excuse for her selfishness and that chip on her shoulder she never loses. Her relationships with both the awful Stan and Julius were constantly boring.
There was so little plot, something that Grant puts right in all her following books. I almost gave up half way through. She obviously had so much to say in this first novel, that it goes on far too long. However, there are certain parts which are good and show the potential of an excellent writer. A stronger editor would have done wonders in reducing the text by at least a third.
There was so little plot, something that Grant puts right in all her following books. I almost gave up half way through. She obviously had so much to say in this first novel, that it goes on far too long. However, there are certain parts which are good and show the potential of an excellent writer. A stronger editor would have done wonders in reducing the text by at least a third.
July 30, 2021
"This a capacious and wide-ranging book, not just about individuals but about the history they move through. Whether the scene is Liverpool in the Blitz, a potato-chip factory in the prairies or a seedy hotel room in Hanoi, the writing is immediate . . . Grant approaches each character with insight and a tart sympathy"
-Hilary Mantel
Literary Review
-Hilary Mantel
Literary Review
September 1, 2019
I've enjoyed other Linda Grant's books before but this was not her best. It was, however, her first and glimpses of her wonderful writing style showed through in lots of places. It focused on Syb, a rich London daughter of immigrant parents, who travels to the US for most of her adult life. As a character, she felt flat and undeveloped ;I never really knew what made her tick. Similarly, with her boyfriends, I never understood their relationships. She became very political but you never really worked out why. Should have been a lot shorter.
January 19, 2022
This book confused me. Sometimes I was enthralled by it, other times I was bored and even skim reading. It’s quite an intellectual analysis of mid C20th life and times, but the narrator is, by her own admission, a shallow, young woman interested only in fashion, sex and good times. I struggled to find the author’s intent in this story. Perplexing!
August 25, 2011
Linda Grant has become a bit of favourite in our book club lately, starting with 'The Clothes on Their Backs' which was short listed for the Man Booker in 2008, and the non-fiction 'The Thoughtful Dresser'. These two books both reveal the author's very deep love and appreciation of clothes as more than just garments. She sees what you wear as crucial to self-identity, self-esteem, inner peace and harmony. Clothes are not just what we wear, but what we are.
So what does all this have to do with this particular novel, Linda Grant's first one, first published in 1996, and re-published last year? Although the story is not really about what we wear or what we look like, it is very much a central theme to the whole story and the raison d'etre of its main character, Sybil Ross and a number of other characters in the story.
The story begins in Liverpool, in 1938. Sybil is a teenager, living with her Serbian Jewish furrier father with his dark East European features, and her very stylish and beautiful mother, blond and blue eyed from Holland. Sybil has taken after her father in her looks and her personality although adores her mother with her gorgeousness and has considerable of appreciation of beautiful clothing and furs even as a 14 year old. Furs are a recurring symbol through the whole story and central to the essence of Sybil in her life.
The war changes everything. Liverpool is blitzed to bits, and on one the worst night of the blitz Sybil learns something about her parents that changes her view of the world and how she perceives her place in it. From then on she drifts, and that is really what the rest of the book is about - Sybil's drifting: through life, men, jobs, belief systems. And I don't think she ever really finds her true self either. Interestingly enough, after spending her life looking for whatever she is looking for, she ends up exactly where she started.
As soon as the war is over, just 21, she flees Liverpool plus all the things her parents stand for, and sails to New York, with her furs of course (the one thing she can't let go), in search of Stan, her Royal Navy boyfriend also from Liverpool. Stan has his own identity problems but he is a very snappy dresser - a spiv. She finds Stan and being both pretty and stylish she finds a job in a top department store. Big changes are afoot in the post-war world and Sybil finds herself drawn to the black community, persecuted and downtrodden in America much like the Jews had always been in Europe. Communism is on the rise and is seen as the vehicle of change for the black population. Sybil is soon immersed into the local red circle, despite her very bourgeois background, after falling for Julius, a charismatic black man. Naturally she has to give up her comfort blanket - her furs - and working in the store - the ultimate symbol of consumerism and capitalism and live like the other comrades. In other words owning nothing, completely divorced from anything remotely bourgeois, and unable to do anything that doesn't have the express approval of the committee.
Against her inner most judgement she goes with Julius to a grotty little working class town in the middle of the mid-West, Michigan or Minnesota - read middle of nowhere, works in a potato chip factory. Julius is 'chosen' for further training and education in Moscow, leaving Sybil alone and stranded. All this is happening during McCarthyism and the manic anti-communism witch hunts and persecutions that were going on in the 1950s. With Julius gone Sybil basically has to live an underground sort of existence for quite some time and eventually makes her way to the west coast, which had always been her goal. She has to make a few difficult decisions, but even then her continuing indecision about her life is infuriating to the reader. This endless drifting... More choices are made and after quite a lot more drifting Sybil finds herself living in England again having come full circle back to her bourgeois roots.
Satisfying read? Not really. Plot all over the place; not sure if the discovery on blitz night is really catastrophic enough to turn one communist; although can see how New York would be considerably more exciting than Liverpool in 1945; still don't really understand why she stayed in that horrible little town in the middle of nowhere with Julius who did not treat her at all well; can sort of see why she had to give up all her beautiful furs, but then why keep only one? All a bit messy and wishy washy for my liking! But having read two of her subsequent books, I love the way the author's love affair with how and why we dress was so important to her way back in her first book. Her books have definitely got better over time.
So what does all this have to do with this particular novel, Linda Grant's first one, first published in 1996, and re-published last year? Although the story is not really about what we wear or what we look like, it is very much a central theme to the whole story and the raison d'etre of its main character, Sybil Ross and a number of other characters in the story.
The story begins in Liverpool, in 1938. Sybil is a teenager, living with her Serbian Jewish furrier father with his dark East European features, and her very stylish and beautiful mother, blond and blue eyed from Holland. Sybil has taken after her father in her looks and her personality although adores her mother with her gorgeousness and has considerable of appreciation of beautiful clothing and furs even as a 14 year old. Furs are a recurring symbol through the whole story and central to the essence of Sybil in her life.
The war changes everything. Liverpool is blitzed to bits, and on one the worst night of the blitz Sybil learns something about her parents that changes her view of the world and how she perceives her place in it. From then on she drifts, and that is really what the rest of the book is about - Sybil's drifting: through life, men, jobs, belief systems. And I don't think she ever really finds her true self either. Interestingly enough, after spending her life looking for whatever she is looking for, she ends up exactly where she started.
As soon as the war is over, just 21, she flees Liverpool plus all the things her parents stand for, and sails to New York, with her furs of course (the one thing she can't let go), in search of Stan, her Royal Navy boyfriend also from Liverpool. Stan has his own identity problems but he is a very snappy dresser - a spiv. She finds Stan and being both pretty and stylish she finds a job in a top department store. Big changes are afoot in the post-war world and Sybil finds herself drawn to the black community, persecuted and downtrodden in America much like the Jews had always been in Europe. Communism is on the rise and is seen as the vehicle of change for the black population. Sybil is soon immersed into the local red circle, despite her very bourgeois background, after falling for Julius, a charismatic black man. Naturally she has to give up her comfort blanket - her furs - and working in the store - the ultimate symbol of consumerism and capitalism and live like the other comrades. In other words owning nothing, completely divorced from anything remotely bourgeois, and unable to do anything that doesn't have the express approval of the committee.
Against her inner most judgement she goes with Julius to a grotty little working class town in the middle of the mid-West, Michigan or Minnesota - read middle of nowhere, works in a potato chip factory. Julius is 'chosen' for further training and education in Moscow, leaving Sybil alone and stranded. All this is happening during McCarthyism and the manic anti-communism witch hunts and persecutions that were going on in the 1950s. With Julius gone Sybil basically has to live an underground sort of existence for quite some time and eventually makes her way to the west coast, which had always been her goal. She has to make a few difficult decisions, but even then her continuing indecision about her life is infuriating to the reader. This endless drifting... More choices are made and after quite a lot more drifting Sybil finds herself living in England again having come full circle back to her bourgeois roots.
Satisfying read? Not really. Plot all over the place; not sure if the discovery on blitz night is really catastrophic enough to turn one communist; although can see how New York would be considerably more exciting than Liverpool in 1945; still don't really understand why she stayed in that horrible little town in the middle of nowhere with Julius who did not treat her at all well; can sort of see why she had to give up all her beautiful furs, but then why keep only one? All a bit messy and wishy washy for my liking! But having read two of her subsequent books, I love the way the author's love affair with how and why we dress was so important to her way back in her first book. Her books have definitely got better over time.
March 1, 2013
The Cast Iron Shore is disappointing, promising so much and delivering so very little. For most of the novel, the characters are cardboard thin, or are at least rendered with a kind of drone, a sleepiness that robs of them of any life they may otherwise have possessed. The pace and focus of this novel is just baffling, with so much wind spoken of not very much and the absolutely remarkable context rather mute, insipid and quickly dispatched. It's an odd book because there are passages where one feels that Grant can write well, but they are few and far between while the rest of it appears to be rather amateur. The novel might work better had it been half its length, had the author focused vividly on what was truly remarkable about her subject - and it would have been remarkable conveyed with better care. I think Grant may develop into a talented author, but this book is swollen with too many flaws to be very interesting or enjoyable.
October 7, 2022
I loved this book. It has different strands to it, but the most interesting is the American communist movement of the 1950s and 60s. Sybil is an empty headed young woman until she meets a black activist who educates her about socialism and politics. I found the insights into this political movement riveting as its not something I've ever read about before. Sybil is an interesting character, unsentimental and vain but with a tough inner core that helps her survive an unusual and independent existence. To me her life story was exhilarating. This book lead me on to read work by Vivien Gornick. One of my favourite novels ever.
March 26, 2022
Worth a little more as it was an excellent period piece but at times it felt naive politically though since set in America......A nice blend of the personal and political developed in the main female character who was not likeable but a product of upbringing and various relationships. her first novel and showed her usual sharp sense of humour - Worth reading.
March 29, 2014
Hmm some great writing particularly in the first parts but then I sort of drifted off and lost interest in the main character and it was a chore to finish. I think the first part is brilliant with great observations about the fur trade, ports and restlessness and war.
September 26, 2011
I'm not a Communist. I'm not even left wing, but this book had me enraptured from start to finish.
March 19, 2015
Just found it rather depressing.
October 17, 2016
Probably told me more about American trade unions and communist party than I really needed but the overall story was interesting and well written.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews