Shred Sisters
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- € 10,99
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LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE
No one will love you more or hurt you more than a sister.
“I love this book. It moves like a souped-up pickup truck." — Patti Smith, author of Just Kids and M Train
From Betsy Lerner, celebrated author of The Bridge Ladies, comes a wry and riveting debut novel about family, mental illness, and a hard-won path between two sisters
It is said that when one person in a family is unstable, the whole family is destabilized. Meet the Shreds. Olivia is the sister in the spotlight until her stunning confidence becomes erratic and unpredictable, a hurricane leaving people wrecked in her wake. Younger sister Amy, cautious and studious to the core, believes in facts, proof, and the empirical world. None of that explains what’s happening to Ollie, whose physical beauty and charisma mask the mental illness that will shatter Amy’s carefully constructed life.
As Amy comes of age and seeks to find her place—first in academics, then New York publishing, and through a series of troubled relationships—every step brings collisions with Ollie, who slips in and out of the Shred family without warning. Yet for all that threatens their sibling bond, Amy and Ollie cannot escape or deny the inextricable sister knot that binds them.
Spanning two decades, Shred Sisters is an intimate and bittersweet story exploring the fierce complexities of sisterhood, mental health, loss and love. If anything is true it’s what Amy learns on her road to self-acceptance: No one will love you more or hurt you more than a sister.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Literary agent Lerner (Food and Loathing, a memoir) traces the impact of mental illness on a pair of sisters in her moving debut novel. Amy, the narrator, describes herself as studious and highly motivated compared to her wild and beautiful older sister, Olivia, who frequently engages in risky or outright illegal behavior, from shoplifting to disappearing for days a time. As the sisters grow up, Ollie's misbehavior poses greater dangers, not only for herself, but also for their parents and for Amy's friendships, romantic relationships, and even her career. Ollie's condition isn't named until late in the novel; part of Lerner's skilled approach to narrative lies in subtly depicting the destigmatizing of mental illness and the evolution of treatment during the period from the sisters' childhood in the 1970s through the 1990s. Lerner's portrayal of Amy's five-year course of therapy is particularly rewarding, as Amy explores the limits and strengths of her bond with Olivia. The result is a quietly lovely and ultimately hopeful chronicle of a complicated family.
