STEPHANIE BISHOP
THE ANNIVERSARY
2023
W&N (UK)
Hachette (Australia)
Grove Atlantic (US)
DTV (Germany)
Marsilio (Italy)
Trei (Romania)
Magneto (Hungary)
Dusbaz (Turkey)
Chosen as a Book of the Year for The New Statesman
Chosen as a Book of the Year for The Guardian
Optioned for film/TV by Made Up Stories with Sister Pictures
Novelist J.B. Blackwood is on a cruise with her husband, Patrick, to celebrate their wedding anniversary.
Her former professor, Patrick is much older than J.B.. But when they met, he seemed somehow ageless, as all new gods appear in the eyes of those who worship them. He is a film director. A cult figure. But now his success is starting to wane and J.B. is on the cusp of winning a major literary prize. Her art has been forever overseen by him, now it may overshadow his.
For days they sail in the sun. They lie about drinking, reading, sleeping, having sex. There is nothing but dark water all around them.
Then a storm hits and Patrick falls off the ship. J.B. is left alone, as the search for what happened to Patrick – and the truth about their marriage – begins.
'Elegant and highly accomplished… Dangerously readable… If only all novels were this engaging and this perceptive about human nature.'
THE OBSERVER
'A stylish read you won’t be able to put down.'
THE TIMES
'The Anniversary is a compulsive yet redemptive book layered with nuances that will have those new to Bishop's work hunting out her backlist.'
FINANCIAL TIMES
'The Anniversary is bejewelled with lovely moments and undeniably exquisite writing, a fine education about desire… An admirable and ambitious investigation into some troublesome contemporary things about men and women and the forces of desire, not just sexual but creative desire.'
THE SATURDAY AGE
'The Anniversary is a haunting mystery, sophisticated, subtle and subversive. Bishop considers the discipline, scrupulous and otherwise, required to make a marriage, as well as to make art, capturing the longing and the disappointment inherent in the attempt to make one's self known to others.'
Susanna Moore, author of IN THE CUT
‘In The Anniversary Stephanie Bishop expertly and mercilessly builds an atmosphere of intense uncertainty and threat. You won’t want to put it down.’
Chris Power, author of A LONELY MAN
‘The dread that slowly creeps into your bones while reading The Anniversary is difficult to shake off, yet you cannot look away. I revelled in every bit of this astute, compelling, psychological novel.’
Virginia Feito, author of MRS MARCH
‘Exquisite, profound, and utterly exhilarating: The Anniversary is a stunning achievement.’
Mark Brandi, author of WIMMERA
'Very addictive and so smart - a fever dream about a writer getting everything they want and living out all their nightmares at the same time.'
Rebecca May Johnson, author of SMALL FIRES
'I absolutely loved The Anniversary, a literary thriller that is simultaneously addictive, compelling, and deeply clever.'
Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of EVERYONE IS STILL ALIVE
'Compelling and dark, a psychological thriller that makes you want to peel back the pages . . . The Anniversary lives up to the hype. For fans of Rachel Cusk and Siri Hustvedt'
BOOKS & PUBLISHING
'A literary potboiler about love, obsession, professional rivalry between intimates and the dilemmas confronting a female artist. Riveting.'
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
'The Anniversary is an example of both deft literary craft and an engrossing read - a feat rarer than it should be.'
AUSTRALIAN BOOK REVIEW
'Such a stylish, incisive novel, tight with suspense and powerful insight. I loved it and will be recommending it far and wide.'
Megan Hunter, author of THE END WE START FROM
'Nothing in this exquisitely twisted tale is quite what it seems. But though the cool, sharp, disenchanted narrator is not to be trusted, one thing about her is for real - her ability to say things so witty and so pungently true I kept turning down pages to mark them. If I kept a commonplace book I would have filled it with lines from this compelling novel about creativity and its discontents.'
Lucy Hughes-Hallett, author of THE PIKE
'I absolutely loved The Anniversary, with its very rare combination of elegance and tension. The dark yet subtle sense of foreboding draws you into the story so cleverly. Magnificent writing that is utterly compelling.'
Joanna Cannon, author of THE TROUBLE WITH GOATS AND SHEEP
'Stephanie Bishop's The Anniversary is literature at its very, very best - her talent shimmers off every single page, her prose is exquisite and her observations about the complexities and competitiveness of intimate relationships, the chaos of the human condition and the inexorable tension between love, family, creativity and art-making are second to none. This novel is an absolute triumph in every respect.'
Lucia Osborne-Crowley, author of MY BODY KEEPS YOUR SECRETS
‘Tense, elegant, sensuous.’
Niamh Campbell, author of WE WERE YOUNG
'Stephanie Bishop's novel The Anniversary is seductive, mysterious, and fiercely intelligent. Bishop peels back, with great insight and artistry, layer after layer of her character's psyche, laying bare the singular pleasures and secret resentments at the centre of any marriage, any life. This is a book to be savoured for its elegant sentences and psychological depth, but you'll be hard-pressed not to devour it in a few voracious sittings.
Sara Freeman, author of TIDES
MAN OUT OF TIME
Shortlisted - Christan Stead Prize for Fiction
Longlisted - The Stella Prize
When Stella’s father, Leon, disappears in September 2001, the police knock at her door. She baulks at their questions, not sure how to answer.
‘What if I just write it down for you.’
The first time Stella sensed that something was wrong was on her ninth birthday. There was an accident, and when she opened her eyes there wasthe tang of blood in her mouth. Leon was beside her. But not quite there. In the winter, when her father finally came home from hospital, he looked different. Looked at her differently.
Now he was missing, and Stella held the key to his discovery. But after all that has passed, his failures and the terrible thingshe has done, could Stella bring herself to help him?
A deeply moving novel about an unsettling bond betweena father and child, of inheritance and destruction and of how the blood we share and the memories we carrydiscolour our view of world ... and ourselves.
"Man Out of Time [...] reveals Bishop to be an astonishing talent who can tell a deeply moving story as well as look beneath it to deeper truths."
"Stephanie Bishop’s remarkable novel Man Out of Time explores a man’s breakdown and its effects on his family. It’s shimmering and sorrowful, and the writing is extraordinary."
Michelle de Kretser
"Stephanie Bishop’s singular talent has made a fearless, beautiful, elegiac gift of a novel." readings.com.au
"Man Out of Time gracefully unpacks the emotional territory that accompanies mental illness and the capacity for trauma to travel through generations. Potent in its subtlety, it is a rich novel that demands the full attention of its readers, rewarding those who invest." Books+Publishing
The Other Side of the World by Stephanie Bishop, winner of the Readings Prize for New Australian Literature & ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year.
The Other Side of the World by Stephanie Bishop, winner of the Readings Prize for New Australian Literature & ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year.
The Other Side of the World by Stephanie Bishop, winner of the Readings Prize for New Australian Literature & ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year.
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD
"An exquisite meditation on motherhood, marriage and the meaning of home." The New York Times Book Review
The Other Side of the World was chosen as Book of the Year for The Independent (UK), The Express (UK), The Australian, and the Sydney Morning Herald.
WINNER - Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction
WINNER - Literary Fiction Book of the Year ABIA's
Shortlisted - The Victorian Premier’s Literary Award
Shortlisted - Indie Book Awards
Longlisted - The Stella Prize
Shortlisted - NSW Premier's Literary Awards
Cambridge, 1963. Charlotte struggles to reconnect with the woman she was before children, and to find the time and energy to paint. Her husband, Henry, cannot face the thought of another English winter. A brochure slipped through the letterbox gives him the answer: 'Australia brings out the best in you'.
Charlotte is too worn out to resist, and before she knows it is travelling to the other side of the world. But on their arrival in Perth, the southern sun shines a harsh light on both Henry and Charlotte and slowly reveals that their new life is not the answer either was hoping for. Charlotte is left wondering if there is anywhere she belongs, and how far she'll go to find her way home...
"Magnificent imagery and an attunement to the music of the novel’s landscapes overlay its exploration of the impact of migration, place and displacement. [...] the precision and flair of the writing is breathtaking." - Felicity Plunkett, The Australian
"As a portrayal of the claustrophobia of motherhood, and of cultural and geographical dislocation, The Other Side of the World is an insightful, exquisitely observed novel. Bishop is a talented and intelligent storyteller with a masterful command of language."
“An artfully rendered meditation on marriage, home, and identity.” - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A profoundly moving novel... achingly haunting prose... a literary tour de force..." - Australian Women's Weekly
"The story of Charlotte and Henry - the melancholy beauty of its prose, and the sharpness of its insights into nostalgia and belonging - has stayed with me for weeks now." - Geordie Williamson, Chief Literary Critic, The Australian
THE SINGING
“A striking new voice, calm and fresh. Her story has the seductive authority, and the quietly shocking beauty, of a dream.”
Helen Garner
Tracing the extremes of grief and longing, The Singing tells the story of a woman’s attempt to come to terms with a failed love affair and to live with the weight of memory and impossible desire. The Singing is a first novel that unforgettably unites voice and experience.
On one level it is an account of a love that is unable to grow and complete itself because of illness, and must at last be relinquished. On another level it is a quiet and exquisite naming of the human need to love and remember. The Singing is a drama which takes place in whispers. Its movement and cadences create a sound that once absorbed will never wholly be lost.