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.
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