The Anniversary

May 29, 2023
The simmering latest from Bishop (The Other Side of the World) explores an unbalanced marriage and a mysterious death. Fourteen years ago, author J.B. Blackwood married her much older former professor, Patrick Heller, now a film director with a cultlike following; his success has put an increasing strain on their relationship. She talks him into taking a cruise from Alaska to Japan to celebrate their anniversary, but after a few boozy days on the water, an unexpected storm seizes their boat, and Patrick falls overboard and drowns. J.B. returns from the vacation alone, grappling with her husband’s sudden death and forced into the limelight as the widow of a famous man. Though J.B.’s star had finally begun to rise before her spouse’s death, thanks to a New Yorker profile and a big prize nomination, Patrick continues to overshadow her (“even in death he had the power to eclipse my own achievements,” she thinks). Among other instances when Patrick exploited their uneven power dynamic, J.B. recalls their secret professor-student relationship and Patrick’s uncredited use of her work for his most successful films. Bishop sustains a breakneck pace, keeping up the suspense with lingering questions about the circumstances of Patrick’s death. The result is beguiling and incisive in equal measure.

June 1, 2023
It's a story as old as time, older man takes in ing�nue. The prot�g� attains success, and envy rears its ugly head. JB Blackwood was a college student when she became enamored with her film studies professor, Patrick Heller. During their 14-year marriage, Blackwood is as much a ballast to her husband's thriving career as he is to hers. Yet, in a patriarchal society, it's all semantics. "As my experience started to match his, and as my successes--by some measures--even exceeded his, the idea of my youth dissolved," Blackwood remembers. Eager to salvage their rocky relationship, Blackwood convinces Patrick to go on a couples cruise as an anniversary celebration. Unfortunately, during a storm, Patrick falls overboard and drowns. Blackwood, a self-professed unreliable narrator, falls under the microscope. Bishop (The Other Side of the World, 2016) expertly dissects the innards of a seesaw relationship and the inequities women must battle. The bristling arguments crackle brilliantly. In the end, "did she or did she not" is almost beside the point. It's the marriage that keeps us engaged.

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February 7, 2023
The Anniversary is a book that’s hard to describe: the writing is quiet, meandering, full of thoughts on art and the act of creative expression. And yet, it is also compelling and dark, a psychological thriller that makes you want to peel back the layers. The narrator is a writer at the peak of her career, having just won a huge literary prize. On a cruise to celebrate her wedding anniversary, her husband, a lauded filmmaker and her former professor, is washed overboard in a storm. With this she comes undone, unsure of where to go and what to do, or if she can even make art without his influence. The narrator’s voice is interior: she muses on the world around her, compulsively consuming her environment to turn into art. But this means she sometimes has trouble telling what is real, which the author plays with. Scenes are visited and revisited, adding missing details and layers of meaning that cast old arguments in new light. This is a novel about relationships between men and women, parents and children, about how power is exercised in ways large and small. Balancing philosophical tangents, concrete detail and frequent jumps forwards and backwards in time with the driving momentum at the heart of the book is a complicated task, but one that the author almost always manages. Stephanie Bishop is the author of four novels including much-awarded The Other Side of the World, and The Anniversary lives up to the hype. For fans of Rachel Cusk or Siri Hustvedt.