Best Caravans in Fiction (A List in Progress)
I’m guessing the idea time to compose a list of your favourite caravans in fiction would be the week you publish a collection of linked short stories set in a North Coast Caravan park, or even the week these stories begin airing on Radio 4, or even, (at a pinch) when they’re subsequently repeated on Radio Ulster. I had good intentions. I started a list at the back of my diary. I never quite got round to finishing it.
Next weekend I’ll be joining novelist Lisa Blower for an online chat at Wolves Literary Festival (link here) and in preparation I read her excellent lates novel, Pondweed which is about ponds and caravans. This provoked me to resurrect the caravans in literature list and finally finishing compiling it. Obviously, there’ll be some novels I’ve forgotten to include or haven’t come across yet. There were also a few clunkers which I’m choosing not to mention. They added nothing to my appreciation of either caravan-living or literature.
From characters hiding out in caravans and characters who’ve made their homes in caravans to characters enduring the caravan holiday from Hell there’s something here for everyone who enjoys a chemical toilet and a Superser. It should be noted that while I’ve found a wide variety of caravan-based fiction including ample exploration of the trailer, touring caravan and static varieties, I have yet to come across a single example of the ‘characters living in a static parked in a field while the bungalow’s being built’ narrative and can thus conclude the fictional caravan canon is, so far, incomplete.
Fiction Featuring Caravans:
(in no particular order, though if you’re only going to read one, make it the Magnus Mills as it’s definitely the Airstream of caravan fiction)
Lisa Blower - Pondweed
Deirdre Shanahan - Caravan of the Lost and Left Behind
Donal Ryan - All We Shall Know
Claire Morrall - The Roundabout Man
Louise Nealon - Snowflake
Enid Blyton - Five Go Off in a Caravan
Steven Sherrill - The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break
Jan Carson - The Last Resort
Jon McNaught - Kingdom
Conor O’Callaghan - We Are Not in the World
Claire Fuller - Unsettled Ground
Magnus Mills - The Restraint of Beasts