Sister to Sister: Women Write About the Unbreakable Bond - Softcover

Foster, Patricia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0385471297 ISBN 13: 9780385471299

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 1996

Synopsis

Sister to Sister includes essays and stories by:
 
Meena Alexander, Robin Behn, Louise DeSalvo, Erika Duncan, Maria Flook, Patricia Foster, Bonnie Friedman, Donna Gordo, Lucy Grealy, Joy Harjo, Bell Hooks, Pam Houston, Jesse Lee Kercheval, Lori Hope Norris, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Mona Simpson, Debra Spark, Joan Wickersham, and Joy Williams.

About this title

Review:

One of several excellent pieces in this well-crafted anthology on the ties that bind sisters is the powerfully affecting essay "Last Things." In it, novelist Debra Spark writes movingly, humorously, and painfully of her sister Cyndy, who died of breast cancer at 26. Several other stories and essays have equally poignant origins, springing from siblings mired in illness or lost to violence, and written, of course, by the sisters who got away. Still, even the bleaker pieces hold lovely, ethereal moments and the relationships between sisters are full and complex. Warmth, love, hilarity, shared memories, and the fierce competition of blood rivals are well represented, too. In a bedroom shared by two young sisters in "My Gertrude Stein," Anita, the more intrepid, sensual one has the bed by the window. On hot, sticky nights she sleeps splayed across the sheets in "star position," describing breezes her sister is dying to feel. "It's exquisite," says Anita. "Like a cat brushing past. Like, like, no--now it's over."

From Library Journal:

Although both of these books are about sibling relationships, the similarity ends there. Foster, who teaches nonfiction writing at the University of Iowa, has pulled together 20 diverse essays from some of today's best-known female writers. Contributors to this volume include bell hooks, Robin Behn, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, and Joy Williams. The essays, while all centering on the themes of sisterly relationships, run the literary gamut. Fanciful fiction pieces are included, as are straightforward autobiographical anecdotes and a couple of critical essays. Any library with a demand for contemporary women's literature should have this collection. Merrell's book, on the other hand, is a journalist's psychoanalytic look at the dynamics of all sibling relationships. Based on in-depth interviews, this work tries to explain the hidden forces that bring siblings together and push them apart. The case studies showcase a variety of familial situations, including relationships between twins and half-siblings and the special bond between a special-needs brother and his caretaker sister. The book suffers from too many diversions; Merrell's long asides interrupt her narrative flow. Despite this organizational flaw, her book is a worthwhile addition to most public and undergraduate libraries because of the author's extensive and enlightening research.?Pamela A. Matthews, Missouri Western State Coll., St. Joseph
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0385471297
• ISBN 13: 9780385471299
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368