'When Stella's father, Leon, disappears in September 2001, the police knock at her door. She baulks at their questions, not sure how to answer. 'What if I just write it down for you.'
'One summer, a long time ago, Stella sat watching her father cry while the sky clouded over. He had tried to make amends: for his failures, for forgetting to buy the doll she once hoped for, for the terrible things he had done.
'The first time Stella sensed that something was wrong was on her ninth birthday. There was an accident, and when she opened her eyes there was the tang of blood in her mouth. Leon was beside her. But not quite there. In the winter, when her father finally came home from hospital, he looked different. Looked at her differently.
'Now he was missing, and Stella held the key to his discovery. But did he want to be found? And after all that has passed, could Stella bring herself to help him?
'Stella's whole life has been stained by her father's very struggle to exist. Would this be her inheritance too? Could she choose the steady minutes of an ordinary day? Or would she follow the path of a man out of time?'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Dedication: For Boyd, in solidarity
Epigraph: 'Without beauty, love or danger it would be almost easy to live. -Albert Camus, Lyrical and Critical Essays
Writing Disability in Australia
| Type of disability | Depression. |
| Type of character | Primary. |
| Point of view | Third person. |
(Introduction)
'Stephanie Bishop’s latest novel, Man Out of Time (Hachette, 2018), is a disturbing read. It is also a sophisticated work, particularly in terms of the way the author has managed narrative temporality – that is, the relation between story and time. Other novelists and aspiring writers would do well to look closely at what Bishop has achieved here.' (Introduction)
'Time is fluid in Stephanie Bishop’s new novel Man Out of Time, an intimate portrait of a family breaking down. The narration is split between the points of view of Stella, her mother Frances, and her father Leon. Bishop captures the fluctuations of her characters’ consciousnesses so closely that the reader experiences narrative time in loops and layers as memories are uncovered and reintegrated into her characters’ thoughts. Leon is the man ‘out of time’ as he tries to salvage the family unit; his own perception of time is distorted by mental illness; and he ultimately runs out of time to save his own life.' (Introduction)
'Stephanie Bishop’s third novel, Man Out of Time, her most mature work to date, echoes Virginia Woolf’s psychological realism and the claustrophobic intensity of Elizabeth Harrower’s The Watch Tower (1966). Indeed, an unkind reviewer might compare Bishop’s latest novel to a subtle iteration of domestic noir, where the great threat is the family unit and its overbearing figurehead, although the protagonist in Bishop’s world oscillates between wanting to escape her oppressor and feeling deeply wedded to him.' (Introduction)
'One of Stephanie Bishop’s major preoccupations in her previous novel, 2015’s award-winning The Other Side of the World, is parenthood: the vulnerability it causes and the shifts it brings to identity and one’s deepest longings. One of the two protagonists, depressed Charlotte, thinks of motherhood: “It should be a joy. I should know how to make it a joy. Today, though, the repulsion overwhelms – this need to be alone, away from the children.” The Other Side of the World is a linear narrative but full of emotional shifts heightened by the swings of Charlotte’s mental health and her husband Henry’s nostalgia for a sense of belonging. It’s anchored by Bishop’s exceptional recording of the details of domestic life, and their significance. Her stunning writing and the way she blends the concrete and the ethereal made this earlier novel complex yet accessible.' (Introduction)
(Introduction)
'One of Stephanie Bishop’s major preoccupations in her previous novel, 2015’s award-winning The Other Side of the World, is parenthood: the vulnerability it causes and the shifts it brings to identity and one’s deepest longings. One of the two protagonists, depressed Charlotte, thinks of motherhood: “It should be a joy. I should know how to make it a joy. Today, though, the repulsion overwhelms – this need to be alone, away from the children.” The Other Side of the World is a linear narrative but full of emotional shifts heightened by the swings of Charlotte’s mental health and her husband Henry’s nostalgia for a sense of belonging. It’s anchored by Bishop’s exceptional recording of the details of domestic life, and their significance. Her stunning writing and the way she blends the concrete and the ethereal made this earlier novel complex yet accessible.' (Introduction)
'Stephanie Bishop’s third novel, Man Out of Time, her most mature work to date, echoes Virginia Woolf’s psychological realism and the claustrophobic intensity of Elizabeth Harrower’s The Watch Tower (1966). Indeed, an unkind reviewer might compare Bishop’s latest novel to a subtle iteration of domestic noir, where the great threat is the family unit and its overbearing figurehead, although the protagonist in Bishop’s world oscillates between wanting to escape her oppressor and feeling deeply wedded to him.' (Introduction)
'Time is fluid in Stephanie Bishop’s new novel Man Out of Time, an intimate portrait of a family breaking down. The narration is split between the points of view of Stella, her mother Frances, and her father Leon. Bishop captures the fluctuations of her characters’ consciousnesses so closely that the reader experiences narrative time in loops and layers as memories are uncovered and reintegrated into her characters’ thoughts. Leon is the man ‘out of time’ as he tries to salvage the family unit; his own perception of time is distorted by mental illness; and he ultimately runs out of time to save his own life.' (Introduction)
'Stephanie Bishop’s latest novel, Man Out of Time (Hachette, 2018), is a disturbing read. It is also a sophisticated work, particularly in terms of the way the author has managed narrative temporality – that is, the relation between story and time. Other novelists and aspiring writers would do well to look closely at what Bishop has achieved here.' (Introduction)
