Sorrow and Bliss is Meg Mason’s recent novel and it is a knockout.
I heard an excellent interview with the author on the podcast ‘The First Time’ which is about the trials and tribulations of publishing a book for the first time. In the episode host Kate Mildenhall talks to Mason about motherhood, mental health, writing failures and accidentally writing a book. To my surprise I had already placed this book on hold, and it arrived a day after I had listened to this episode! I love those serendipitous moments, it felt like perfect timing when I got my hands on this book.
Sorrow and Bliss is about Martha, a bright, darkly funny woman who has struggled her whole life with an undisclosed mental illness. Mason does not identify the mental illness Martha has because she wanted the story to serve as a broader discussion of living with mental illness, medications and getting a diagnosis and not about a specific illness. I think she was successful in this regard because you become focused on Martha’s experiences and thoughts and not what her condition is. It is one of those books where you feel like you are inside the narrator’s head and fully immersed in her internal life.
I found it incredibly gripping and couldn’t put it in down. It was sad, funny, heartbreaking and joyous all at once. Mason has done an amazing job of creating a book that feels like real life, so much so that you start to wonder how much of it is fiction and how much autobiographical.
Sorrow and Bliss is available as an eBook and print copy from the library.
You can also Listen to The First Time podcast to hear the interview with author Meg Mason.
Rosanna
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