Offshore

OFFSHORE is a love story set among a community of barge-dwellers on the Thames, where Fitzgerald herself lived with her family in the 1960s. The novel won the Booker Prize in 1979. THE GATE OF ANGELS, also known as THE BLUE FLOWER, tells the story of an idealistic man who is the lover and mentor of a 12-year-old girl with whom he is obsessed. Upon her death three years later, she becomes his muse. This novel is based on the life of the German romantic poet Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg, 1772-1801), whose major work was a novel describing the artist's search for a "blue flower."