ENT ER TA I N ME N T
BOOK REVIEW by Dave Bradley, Film/Arts Writer
THE ANNIVERSARY Stephanie Bishop Bishop’s ambitious fourth novel is a study of grief, pain and loss, as well as guilt, trauma, the confines of marriage, the relationship between art and commerce, issues of age and gender within the realms of academia… and so much more on top. And therefore, unsurprisingly, it can feel a tiny bit strained at times. To celebrate their forthcoming anniversary, longtime marrieds JB Blackwood and Patrick are enjoying a cruise, and she hopes that, when they finally reach Japan, she’ll tell him about the literary prize she’s won for her latest novel. Her former lecturer, Patrick is a filmmaker and general cult figure who’s almost two decades older than her, and he’s becoming grumpy and erratic, even as she blossoms. When a drunk Patrick falls overboard and drowns somewhere in Russian waters, Bishop examines JB’s extreme psychological state in the terrible aftermath, as her exhausted mind confusedly ponders how they got together, how he inspired and encouraged her, and how much she loved him. Or, at least, she thought she did. However, while it’s hard not to sympathise with JB here, the plot can at times feel somewhat overwrought, as we build, and build, and build, and build to something that, perhaps, might not actually be there. Just like life.
RRP $32.99 Hachette: Sphere
MONSTERS: A FAN’S DILEMMA Claire Dederer Dederer’s third book (after Love And Trouble: Memoirs Of A Former Wild Girl and Poser: My Life In Twenty-Three Yoga Poses) is similarly autobiographical, yet darker. An author, critic, journo and Mum, Claire began the journey that led to this in 2016, on the eve of Trump’s election, before the #MeToo movement really took off, four years before COVID, and so forth, as she pondered how she could love the films of Roman Polanski, despite knowing what he did to a 13-year-old girl in 1977. Could anyone still admire Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown and his other masterworks? As she considered the conundrum of great art made by awful people, the list of potential subjects got longer. And this led to Polanski being the focus of Chapter 1, and then there’s: Woody Allen (how can you watch his Manhattan now?); Michael Jackson, whose crimes she barely describes, assuming we know; violent misogynists Pablo Picasso and Ernest Hemingway; appalling anti-Semite Richard Wagner; and more. Some choices might seem a stretch, yet when she dissects Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita and suggests that it seems to justify the crimes of pedophiles, you can’t help but agree. And others are also intriguing, including Valerie Solanas, fearsome author of the now-celebrated SCUM Manifesto, and the woman who shot Andy Warhol. Noting the lack of female ‘Monsters’ here, Dederer thinks that probably the worst ‘crime’ a woman can commit in the name of art is abandoning her children, even as she (supposedly) does just that, if only for five weeks at a Texan artists’ retreat. She devotes a chapter to author Doris Lessing (Claire fears yet adores Lessing’s The Golden Notebook) and muso Joni Mitchell (who gave her daughter up for adoption as her career took off, and it haunted her), but notes that these ‘crimes’ aren’t the same as the guys and their rapes, wife-bashings, drunken rampages, and horrific ideals, which are too often excused because they’re ‘Great Artists’. There’s much-needed humour here too, thankfully, with funny recollections of Claire’s years as a Seattle film critic, and the time she tripped in a New York street and suffered a painful injury (which she jokes was because of the continuing curse of Rosemary’s Baby). But she’s also capable of being scarily serious, like when she wonders if she can talk about ‘Monsters’ quite so harshly when, well, she might be one herself. Or is she?
RRP $32.99 Hachette Australia: Sceptre FI FT Y+ S A
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