Even though I finished The Anniversary only two weeks ago I've had to look it up to remind myself what it was about and what happened across its interminable length. I'm finding it difficult to even write this review, such is my antipathy toward the novel. In any case, here I go: JB Blackwood, a novelist, and her famous filmmaker husband, Patrick, twenty years her senior, embark on a cruise in order to rekindle their relationship. There's much more to it, of course, taking in such weighty themes as the nature of narrative, which is often fragmentary and opaque (as the novel keeps reminding you) and the power imbalance that can exist between men and women, especially in the creative field, and, of course, the mysterious nature of marriage. It turns out that Patrick was JB's tutor (what a surprise!) and JB's rather naive crush turns into a marriage in which both fuel the other's artistic endeavours, until it all comes to an end on the cruise to celebrate the couple's anniversary (hence the title...). The story is told strictly from JB's perspective in a very claustrophobic first person style, with no direct dialogue, rather JB informs the reader what other characters are saying and doing. JB's perspective totally dominates, which is part of the thematic point of the novel. It doesn't take long to suspect that JB is an unreliable narrator and that the reader is only privy to a skewed and distorted version of events, both in the present and the past.
Marketed both as a mystery and a thriller, The Anniversary is neither. JB's musings have a soporific effect on the mind and body, as she endlessly ponders her past, her marriage, the publishing industry and most of all, the loss of Patrick, who has 'mysteriously' fallen overboard during a storm off the coast of Japan. Unfortunately there's no mystery about it, as it is obvious that JB herself was directly involved. It's hard to be sympathetic toward her, she is a distinctly unlikable character. For a novel to really have emotional resonance it needs to make you care about what happens to the principal protagonist, however I didn't care at all about JB's predicament; her struggle to get through the demands of an author tour right after the death of her husband, her traumatic childhood due to her mother's disappearance, and her attempts to outrun her part in Patrick's death. The novel slumps badly during a lengthy middle part in which JB stays with her sister's family in Australia, which very obviously explores the dysfunctions that lay at the heart of her wider family. The Anniversary does have something going for it, it is easy to read, but unfortunately it reveals itself to be one of those popular fiction novels masquerading as literary fiction. There's lots of them out there and perhaps that's what the novel is being compared against, surely this is why it was long listed for The Stella Prize? The Anniversary was a book club read and I have to report that it is one of the worst received novels in the near twenty year history of the Subiaco Library Book Club. I ask members to rate the novel out of ten at the end of each session and ninety percent of the ratings fell below five. No mercy was shown toward the novel by the members, making my comments in this review seem tame in comparison. Enough said!
