IAn Unwritten Novel – story synopsis
An un-named first-person narrator is travelling on a commuter train between London and the south coast. Whilst reading the Times, the narrator notices a woman opposite with an unhappy expression, and thinks that her character can be interpreted, especially from the expression in her eyes. The woman becomes agitated, and the narrator begins to echo her gestures.
The narrator begins to imagine that this woman (who is given the name Minnie Marsh) is paying a visit to her sister-in-law (Hilda). The family group are imagined at the dinner table, at which the narrator pushes her imagination forward, to avoid the inessential details. Minnie goes upstairs to unpack her meagre belongings, and stares out in a despairing state across the rooftops of an Eastbourne suburb on December afternoon, and thinks of God.
The narrator find difficulty in fully imagining God, but comes up with the idea that Minnie has committed some sort of crime. The question is, what sort of crime would a woman such as Minnie commit? The narrator settles on a scene where Minnie lingers in a Croydon draper’s shop and arrives home late to discover that her baby brother has died from scalding.
The narrator then checks her construction with the figure in the railway carriage, who is pretending to be asleep. The scene returns to Eastbourne, where the petty constraint of her sister-in-law’s house drive Minnie outdoors.
The narrator wonders if she is capturing the essence of the woman, and likens the effort to that of a hawk flying over the Sussex Downs. The story then loops back to pick up where it left off. Minnie takes a boiled egg and starts eating it in her lap.
The narrator loses grasp of the story and realises that something must be done to maintain its interest. Rhododendrons and commercial travellers are considered, then she invents a salesman James Moggeridge who takes his meals with the Marshes on a particular day when he is in Eastbourne. Moggeridge’s home life is predicated, then rejected as being unsuitable.
The narrator thinks of Minnie looking back over the events of the imaginary scene, then darning a hole in her glove. Imagining that Minnie would be disappointed not to be met at the station, the narrator offers to help her with her luggage.
But it transpires that the woman is being met by her son, and the narrator realises that the invented biography was quite inaccurate. Nevertheless, the narrator goes on observing people and ends on a note of celebration for the life of the imagination.