The Other Side of You

Salley Vickers (2006), Fourth Estate, 304 pages

At the heart of Salley Vickers new novel, The Other Side of You, are central questions for all of us – issues of love, salvation, forgiveness and redemption. Vickers’ fourth novel is a beautifully written tale which unfolds through the eyes of David, a psychiatrist who spends his time helping the ‘suicidally disposed’. David is a proponent for talking rather than medication and throughout the book we travel with David between London and Rome as he uses art, philosophy and poetry to understand the lives of his patients, and also to understand himself. David is nursing deep feelings of loss and guilt from a childhood tragedy that he has never managed to overcome, despite his tireless work to help others do so. Through his patient Elizabeth Cruikshank, David comes to understand both the depths of his own bereavement and unhappiness, whilst also helping Elizabeth to understand the value for her to continue with her own life. The novel delicately unveils that side of all of us which we are so reticent to share with others yet as David explains, it is this ‘invisible self’ which constitutes our real identity. Central to the story is the artwork of Caravaggio which is delicately presented by Vickers to demonstrate similar inadequacies and regrets which were shared by the Italian artist, and also to reveal how art can so often correspond with our own fears. In a spectacular case of life imitating art, throughout the book there is speculation that a particular Caravaggio painting which has been missing for to the art world for centuries, exists somewhere in France. Vickers herself was amazed when a mere two days after the novel went to print; the missing painting was discovered in the organ loft of a church in central France.