Unfortunately for the reading public, most of Bernadine Bishop’s working life has been spent as a psychotherapist. Having published a couple of early novels, she put aside her pen, first to become a teacher, and then a shrink: it was only after cancer forced her retirement in 2010 that she turned again to writing.
I sincerely hope she is in remission now, not only for the sake of her own health and happiness, but so that she can write as many more books as possible.
Unexpected Lessons in Love is a wonderful novel, one of those rare books which leaves the reader with a deeper understanding of the human heart. It actually offers what its title proposes. Not that there is anything even remotely chocolate-boxy: herein are colostomy bags and whether sex is possible following their advent (one character wonders, vaguely, whether she ‘even has a vagina’ following surgery), an amusingly solipsistic novelist, a war correspondent, an ancient nun, a schizophrenic and a couple of babies, both brilliantly and unsentimentally brought to life on the page. Birth, adoption, marriage, friendship and death are all examined with a wry sympathy. Lack of self-knowledge is presented as a comic — and generally temporary — hiccup. I hesitate to use the word wisdom, for fear of making Bishop sound po-faced or, worse, like the author of a self-help guide. But wise she is.
It isn’t perfect. There are too many cats (although, to be fair, only one and half of them are ascribed actual personalities) and just one rather pointless and unpleasantly slobbery dog. The names are maddening: a major character is called Cephas, while two leading men are easily confused, thanks to being given the almost interchangeable names Ian and Tim. There are places where the plot creaks a little. It may be that Bernadine Bishop is nicer than most people, for some of her characters come more easily to forgiveness, reconciliation and acceptance than you might expect in a random survey.
But these are cavils. This is an author of exceptional intelligence, subtlety and warmth. Expect to hear the name Bernadine Bishop when the lists for the Costa and Man Booker prizes are compiled later this year.
As Hilary Mantel said in her acceptance speech last year: you wait years and years for a Booker prize and then two come along at once. If you are that reader who has been longing for not one but two novels about cancer, then publishing smiles upon you, for here is a second. The Fault in our Stars is about adolescent cancer: you would have to possess the heartlessness of either a shoebill or a shark not to cry several times while reading this book. Remarkably, American author John Green achieves this without recourse to the mawkish. Instead, his leading characters, both cancer-riddled, are personifications of that favourite of US qualities, feistiness. If you have seen the film Juno, you will recognise the tone, which is smart-alecky, dry and relentlessly quirky. In other words, both smug and banal. You can almost hear the rising inflection at the end of each sentence. Why a turn of phrase which would make you want to slap the speaker in real life should be acceptable in fiction is a mystery. Perhaps we are able to excuse it because these poor young people are suffering from a terminal illness.
That this book should be extremely readable and at times very moving, despite the voices of its characters, is an achievement which should not be underestimated. The Fault in our Stars has been a bestseller on the far side of the Atlantic and surely a film version will follow. With their doomed pallor, their code of honour and sense of exclusion, these characters are tragic cousins to the teen vampires of the ever-popular Twilight books and movies. John Green is to be applauded for giving voice to aspects of illness which seldom see the light of day: its effect on teenage sexual experiment, on friendship and on the parents who must stand by and see their darlings fade. The young people’s pity for their soon-to-be-grieving parents is a dreadful detail and very touchingly realised.
A subplot involving a ranting, alcoholic, misanthropic novelist in Amsterdam adds little to the story, which is essentially that of boy-meets-girl. Love found, then lost: it was enough in Romeo and Juliet and it would have been enough here. John Green’s novel will appeal to readers of all ages. Book clubs might want to order in a few boxes of tissues to go with it.
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