The Other Side of the World

A beautiful, harrowing portrait of mental illness and the endless search for home, this sophomore novel by Bishop (The Singing) depicts a gripping psychological descent that touches on the saddest of truths: once you leave, you can never truly find home again. Painter Charlotte Blackwood thrives in the gray winters of 1960s England, until the birth of her first child spirals her into a disoriented, heartbroken world of postpartum depression and loss of self. Her husband, Henry, an Anglo-Indian professor who has never felt at home in England, receives a brochure about emigration to Australia, and decides that this is what the family needs to make a new start. Overtired and pregnant again, Charlotte reluctantly agrees, and within a few years, the family is resettled in the Perth countryside. But all is not as Henry hoped: he is met with racism at his new university. Henry’s questioning of his identity slowly consumes him until he can’t complete the book he’s writing, or get through his lectures without drifting. Charlotte, as lost as ever, finds solace in a neighbor’s friend, Nicholas, as she longs for England and sinks ever deeper into a world of infidelity to find herself. Full of excellent prose, especially in descriptions of landscapes, this story leaves its characters and readers wondering what is at the root of identity and nostalgia, and what a sense of home really means. Agent: Emma Paterson, Rogers, Coleridge & White Literary Agency. (Sept.)