Unexpected Lessons in Love by Bernadine Bishop

Unexpected Lessons in Love

Bernadine Bishop

Sixty-somethings Cecilia and Helen have been diagnosed with cancer. In this heartwarming story of friendship found in a hospital waiting room, strategies for coping with colostomy give way to family crises and the search for fulfillment. Though likely to appeal to those who enjoy a story with a domestic setting, squeamish readers may find the early pages give them too much information.

Extract
She realised now that, without recognising it, she had become ready to install herself, with a sigh of relief, among the whole and the free, in a position to look down pityingly on the lower ranks, still enmeshed in the hospital. It seemed ironic that she, with a colostomy and a reinvented backside, should have managed to presume she could bloom afresh among the healthy, among the insouciant aristocrats of the body. But so it was.
Parallels
  • The Spare Room by Helen Garner
  • One True Thing by Anna Quindlen