On reading Hidden Knowledge, by Bernardine Bishop

Bernardine Bishop undoubtedly gathered a lot of knowledge about human nature and human relationships during her long career as a psychotherapist.

I would say that she used just the right amount of those insights in this novel to make it satisfying in the highest novelistic sense. This is not a formally inventive tour de force or anything like that, but neither is it lightweight. Indeed, she goes places with this book that many authors would be afraid to tread. This is funny, sad, unflinching nourishment. What surprising things can we learn about ourselves in those moments when it is time to let go of a dear one (or a dearly protected version of ourselves)? That's what this book seems to be about.

Hidden Knowledge is published by Sceptre (2014).