(courtesy Penguin Books Australia)
Belonging to a community, to a group of people who give a damn about you, is one of the sublime, and you could well argue, necessary delights of being human.
It grounds us, give us purpose and most importantly makes us feel as if we are not doing life alone which is no bad thing when you consider how big life, good and bad and in-between, can be.
And we feel it’s absence keenly, almost to a desperate degree, especially when we have had that connection, deep, true and unconditional and then suddenly it’s gone; someone who knows what this feels like to a heartrending degree is the eponymous protagonist of The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife by Anna Johnston who arrives at the impressive age of 82 with all his faculties intact but without his beloved wife, Dawn, financial savings and soon, far too soon, no roof over his head.
This selflessly kind man who instinctively prioritises the wellbeing of others over himself is about to be turfed from his rented home, his life a mere shadow of its former well-loved self and his options narrowed to an almost insurmountable degree.
But then a bizarre series of events on a riverbank in the fictional town he lives in north of Sydney, Australia, sees him not only takes the place of one Bernard Greer in the Wattle River Nursing Home, but find food, shelter and the connective tissue of friends and family.
‘I’ve been waiting for you. I’m so glad you’re here, Fred,’ Albert said, squeezing his hand.
A smile crept across Fred’s face. ‘You know what? I think I’m glad I’m here, too.’
This genuinely lovely man is riven with guilt but slapping on a poker face, he plays the part of Bernard, whom he resembles to an uncanny degree, to a tee and finds the sort of home he has craved for years.
But he is living a lie, and while all that wonderful food, and the friendship of fellow nursing home resident Albert, employees Kevin and Linh, and even Bernard’s daughter Hannah comes to mean the world to him, he feels like there’s a loud, insistent clock ticking in the background and it’s only a matter of time before he’s found it.
Which, if your Frederick wouldn’t be a bad thing because he is a honourable man, and while he loves and values his new life, he knows it is not truly his, and if some truly self-sacrificial acts on his part mean he loses it for the greater good, then so be it.
But for now, he has a home, people who care about him and a sense of purpose, such as helping Albert, well into the impenetrable memory forests of dementia, find some peace when so much about his part-remembered life feels foreign and unknown.
A found family story with heart aplenty, The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife is one of those books that might be founded on an extraordinary premise, but which finds emotional depth and substance in some truly affecting ways, in very grounded, all-too-real humanity, the kind that wears its heart well and truly on its sleeve.
(courtesy official author site)
The key to the wonder and beauty of The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife is how Johnston empathetically weaves in the prevailing need we all have to belong, truly, really belong, and beyond that, to MATTER.
Not mattering, not being seen, is corrosive to the soul, and at the time of the remarkable turnaround of his life, Frederick feels as if nothing he does matters, or he matters, which is a crime because if anyone deserves to be happy, it’s this innately kind and decent man.
If you have ever felt like an outlier to your own life, then you will find much with which to identify in this wholly beautifully and thoughtfully insightful novel which is a love letter to the power of community and friendship to change lives for the better.
As someone who spent much of his childhood being bullied and excised from the usual connectivity of peer circles, Frederick spoke heavily to me, his lack of belonging, and it’s highly unusual remedy, speaking of the desperate need we all have to feel as if our presence in the world is causing some kind of ripple, that if we were suddenly gone, our absence would truly be a terrible thing.
The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife sings of the glories of being the sort of person whose loss would be keenly felt, and it does so in ways that are sweetly nuanced and yet consequentially expansive.
Like father, like daughter, thought Fred. How he wished it were true. Guilt momentarily gnashed at his guts, yet he found he had a new weapon to combat it: love. Paternal love. For he had totally, inexplicably fallen head over heels for his ‘daughter’, Hannah.
It’s also very light and funny too which leavens out it’s more serious elements quite wonderfully.
As Frederick/Bernard tries to fight off the amorous advances of one nursing home resident or set Kevin and Linh on the path to well-deserved marital bliss, with all the inherent hilarity that entails, he also has to grapple with what it is like to forgive, to find healing and to feel like all the pain of the past finds some substantial and lasting resolution in the present.
There’s a lot going on in this wondrously uplifting novel, and yet The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife never feels too busy or overstuffed; instead, Johnston’s assured hand means that every single strand of this story and every fulsomely realise character feels like they belong and matter and their absence would be noticed.
Which is perfect because that is, of course, the story to which they are in service.
It’s impossible not feel absolutely swept off your feet by his gloriously charming story which is a fairytale of sorts but one with grit and emotional substance, which understands that while happy-ever-afters are possible in life, they often follow great pain and sadness, and there’s never an assurance that everything will work out after all.
Does our selfless protagonist get a much-deserved happy ending? Ah, you will need to read The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife to truly find that out, but suffice to say, this is a novel with heart and soul to burn, characters, especially a lead one, who captured your heart and seize your emotional imagination, and a story that reminds us of how precious belonging and conditional love is, and how wondrous it is when they are ours and we get to keep them from now until the end of our life.