Shirley Barrett Fleet, 2018, HB, 272pp, £14.99, 978-0708898796
There are some writers one reads for the subtlety and nuance of their finely crafted prose. Australian screenwriter, novelist and breast cancer survivor Barrett is not one of those writers. When her 31-year-old protagonist Eleanor is diagnosed with breast cancer her first reaction is ‘Whaaaat?? The fuuuuuu**?’ So begins this strange, beguiling, sometimes horrifying and often hilarious story of Eleanor’s ‘journey’. I use the word ‘journey’ in inverted commas as Eleanor wryly observes of her breast cancer support group:
‘The theme of the evening was ‘My Cancer Journey, and that alone should have given me pause since all journeys have a destination, cancer journeys in particular, and its not a destination anyone had any intention of talking about’.
Eleanor’s sarcastic wit and tell-it-as-it-is character belies a fortitude and sheer gritty determination. Following her lumpectomy she is told by the surgeon that unfortunately the margins were not clear and she will require more surgery and she observes that this:
‘... was pretty much when I realised that these guys haven’t got a clue — they’re basically just winging it’.
She tries to escape her diagnosis and a recent failed relationship by taking up a teaching post in a small rural town of Talbingo, New South Wales, far from the urbane Australian landscape she is used to. Talbingo has a population of 241 — or at least it did before its only teacher Miss Barker went missing — so Eleanor steps into the fold.
What ensues is a novel that is impossible to categorise. The Bus On Thursday is part romcom, part horror, part whodunnit, but all-consuming. Eleanor will make you snort with laughter; when describing her breast cancer support group she finds it intolerable to be:
‘... surrounded by fifteen middle-aged women in aggressively cheerful headscarves …. there was just way too much laughter and hugging, like cancer gives you licence to be zany. Seriously it was painful’.
She will make you wince with pain; when her date reacts badly to her prosthetic breast, she will also make you realise that, a little like The bus on Thursday, life and medicine can be unpredictable, funny, sad and a rocky ride.
- © British Journal of General Practice 2019
