Longlisted for the 2024 Stella Prize
Stephanie Bishop – The Anniversary
Fiction · Hachette Australia
About the Book
Novelist JB Blackwood is on a cruise with her husband, Patrick, to celebrate their wedding anniversary. Her one-time professor, Patrick is much older than JB. A maverick 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 JB is on the cusp of winning a major literary prize. Her art, that has been forever overseen by Patrick, is starting to 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. When Patrick falls overboard, JB is left alone, as the search for Patrick’s body, the circumstances of his death and the truth about their marriage begins.
“The result is a book that is as clever as it is delicious. A masterclass in layered sophistication.”
– 2024 Stella Prize Judges
About the Author
Stephanie Bishop
Stephanie Bishop is a widely acclaimed novelist and critic. She is the award-winning author of three novels, The Singing (2005), The Other Side of the World (2015) and Man Out of Time (2018). Stephanie has won the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction and the ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year. She’s also been shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards and the Christina Stead Prize for fiction and longlisted for the Stella Prize. And in 2006 she was named one of the Sydney Morning Herald’s Best Young Australian Novelists of the Year. Her essays and fiction have appeared in the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, The Monthly and the Sydney Review of Books, among other publications. Her fourth novel, The Anniversary, published internationally in 2023. Stephanie is currently working on her fifth novel.
Further Reading
Reviews
“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 thrill.” Fay Helfenbaum, Book + Publishing
“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.” Publishers’ Weekly
“Stephanie Bishop writes with a gentle touch. Her prose is richly textured and deeply resonant.” Diana Carroll, Sydney Arts Guide
Links
Listen to Stephanie Bishop talk about The Anniversary and genre fiction in the So You Want to be a Writer Podcast with Valerie Khoo.
Judges’ Report
Here is genre-fiction at its very best.
Stephanie Bishop’s third novel is – unabashedly – a psychological thriller. It is also a sly, meta-fictional think-piece on art-making, art-monsters and the ever-slippery erotics of power. The result is a book that is as clever as it is delicious. A masterclass in layered sophistication.
JB is a novelist whose star is on the rise. Her husband, Patrick, is an auteur film director – two decades her senior – whose star has well and truly peaked. Rumours are swirling; a reckoning is brewing. The couple take a cruise to reinvigorate their marriage. But when Patrick falls overboard, JB doesn’t quite behave “correctly”. Rather than weep and mourn, she flies to New York to accept a literary prize for a novel based on their relationship. JB has pinned all of Patrick’s unspoken cruelties to the page.
The Anniversary is a fully-realised literary achievement. From its sensuous sentences to its thrilling genre-craft to its timely cultural provocations. It is a book that could be read under a beach umbrella or in a university classroom. What price do women pay for men’s genius? What is the difference between cruelty and compromise? Whose stories do we value and believe? Whose secrets do we keep? There are no easy answers here.
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