Award-winning Australian author Stephanie Bishop published her fourth novel The Anniversary in late March, though you may be forgiven for having missed it given the proliferation of big names with novels due out around the same time. (Pip Williams, anyone?)
Centring on the relationship between a novelist J B Blackwood and her filmmaker husband, Patrick (who was once her professor), the novel flits back and forth in time as it explores the beginning, middle and end of this relationship. It is not a spoiler to say that this relationship ends with Patrick’s death.
Whilst on a cruise celebrating their fourteenth wedding anniversary, Patrick falls overboard into freezing cold waters somewhere between Russia and Japan. We, the audience, know that Patrick and JB were angry with one another at the time the accident occurred and that Patrick said something to JB that she could never un-hear. But, we have to wait until later in the novel to find out what.
There were echoes of Meg Wolitzer’s masterful novel, The Wife, in the set up of The Anniversary. Shortly before departing for the cruise, JB learns that her latest and most personal novel has been shortlisted for a major literary award. She makes arrangements to end their anniversary trip in the United States so that she can attend the prize ceremony, deliberately not telling Patrick her good news. But is she intending to surprise him, or is she nervous about how he will react?
While JB’s career is on the rise, Patrick’s is waning and JB is beginning to question whether he has truly made her success possible – or whether in fact, the reality may be the opposite. JB’s career as a writer is dissected in minute detail, and the novel tends towards the self-consciously literary at times. It is as if this story is a vehicle for its writer to philosophise on the precarious balance of womanhood and writing, and examining the logical follow on of the question: how many great works of art have been lost throughout history, because women have not been permitted to fully give themselves over to the making of it?
The novel is also one which delves deep into the nature of desire. JB and Patrick’s relationship is very physical right from the beginning, and indeed right up until the end. I couldn’t quite understand, however, why it was necessary to have JB detailing their last bout of lovemaking before the accident to a very embarrassed Japanese policeman in the accident’s aftermath. Perhaps it was supposed to speak to JB’s sense of shock. But as our narrator, speaking from some distant point in the future, JB often felt detached and analytical, and to have her suddenly speaking about moments of sexual desire felt jarring.
While I reject the idea that female protagonists always need to be likeable, there was little about JB’s voice that I found compelling. And while the opening scenes of the novel seemed to be setting up a thriller, the latter two thirds of the book did tend to meander.
Readers who enjoy a beautiful turn of phrase and a deep-dive into character psychology will no doubt find moments of inspiration within the pages of this latest offering from Bishop. But if you’re looking for a domestic thriller, you’d perhaps be better off looking elsewhere.
THREE STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Stephanie Bishop’s The Anniversary is available now from Hachette Australia. Grab yourself a copy from Booktopia HERE.
