The Web of Belonging

Stevie Davies’s The Web of Belonging is a book that keeps on coming back. First published in 1997 by The Women’s Press, it received a new lease of life in 2004 when it was adapted for TV and became an ITV film starring Brenda Blethyn. Now back in print thanks to Parthian it shows no sign of going away. Aside from one anachronistic pre-smoking ban instance of someone smoking in a café, it feels as contemporary and relevant as ever. It is an important, touching, and funny portrayal of the kind of woman literature typically overlooks. Jess is married to Jacob. While they have no children, they are certainly not without their dependants. Jacob’s mother, May, and his Aunt Brenda are elderly and infirm and live with them in their big old riverside house in Shrewsbury. Alongside May and Brenda is the God-fearing Nathan, Jacob’s elderly cousin. All of ‘The Oldies’ fall under Jess’s care, with her role as carer being one she sees as her calling. This is where we find Jess at the novel’s start – happy, satisfied, and at the centre of this carefully balanced web. When Jacob goes missing, things change. The elements of Jess’s life shift and affect each other like never before. Imagine a living, breathing game of Kerplunk as a stick is pulled out and the marbles all shift. Will they fall? With Jacob gone, what happens to Jess’s relationship to his family? What happens to their expectations of her? There are so many questions raised in this novel that it’s hard to know where to start. Jess spends her life defined by her relationship to everything she surrounds herself with. When all of that shifts, she’s left wondering who she is. At the heart of the book is the question of whether you can retain your sense of self while being selfless and serving others. The Web of Belonging is about Jess slowly trying to answer that. The relationships in this novel are all very carefully written and played out in such detail. The back and forth between Jess and May particularly is a fascinating dynamic, not least because they call each other ‘Mum’. Who is responsible for who? What really defines a mum? The names we call each other and the way we perceive other people is one of the recurring themes. The battle of ‘mum’ between May and Jess is fascinating, but the way Jess sees Jacob, which is at odds with how he sees himself, is played out so subtly and with gentle humour. Jess specifically describes Jacob as a carpenter, using that term over ‘joiner’ as it implies a sense of craft and care over mere function. Jacob, however, repeatedly uses the word joiner to describe his work, disregarding Jess’s boundless respect for him. It’s one of the gentle ways that Davies illustrates the pedestal Jess builds for Jacob. Women like Jess are typically absent from literature’s centre stage; there are carers, mothers, ‘functional’ and obligated women, but rarely do these characters get to be the focus of a novel like this. The maids, the mothers and the martyrs are typically so two-dimensional in fiction and serve a purpose in someone else’s story. What Davies does so well here is to allow Jess to become three-dimensional as the novel progresses, so that the joy is in watching Jess flesh out her own story. Her character is defined by other people’s stories, so what happens when those stories move on? -- Liam Nolan @ www.gwales.com