Light Sister, Dark Sister

Two sisters, the risk-taking, brilliant, and erratic Bobbie, and the invisible Gray, each face menacing questions and learn to break free of the family bond. A first novel. 10,000 first printing.

Wistfully, sensitively, this low-key first novel set in New Orleans circles around its theme of two sisters--one sick, one sound. Radiant Bobbie Maubry, a brainy acting student whose manic brilliance veers ever more into psychosis, commandeers all the attention, while her lackluster sister Gray loiters "inconspicuous and gray, a moth on the wall." Gray initially struggles to throw off her self-image as Bobbie's dimwitted shadow and move toward autonomy. With Bobbie growing more erratic and suicidal, more "glittery-eyed" and unable to distinguish reality from mirage, Gray's next task is to talk herself out of the duty to be her sister's keeper. The girls vie for parental esteem--from volatile Max, their architect father, and Mudie, their arty, moody mother. Both are viewed as childish egotists, indulging their destructive whims: Max runs around offstage with his mistress, Mudie cowers in her room and sculpts obsessively. Though heavy blame falls on Max and Mudie for their daughters' problems, both parents seem more bland than sinister. Absent is any sense of smothering horror as Bobbie, in and out of institutions, hovers as Gray's doppelganger, often posing as Gray. The several literary allusions to Antigone and Ismene (Oedipus's daughters) obtrude self-consciously. While the two-sisters theme gets its ruminative due, what the novel finally lacks is a vibrant forward drive.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A first novel, set in New Orleans, that belies any racial or feminist connotations contained in its clunky title: it's really about two sisters and their coming-of-age struggles as the genteel facade of their family life crumbles. Gray Maubry, the narrator, has always lived in older sister Bobbie's shadow. Bobbie is the brilliant one, sure to go to Harvard. She's the actress who wins acclaim in school productions. She's the focus of their father Max's attention and ambition. But, as Gray knows, Bobbie is also the sister whose face betrays a hidden cruelty. She's the daughter who tries to fence the family jewelry. She's the troubled teenager who secretly slices her flesh with a razor blade. Long before Max or their gently befuddled artistic mother, Mudie, can admit it, Gray is aware that Bobbie has serious mental problems. As Bobbie's troubles deepen, the whole seam of the Maubrys' family life seems to come unstitched and Gray has to figure out, slowly and painfully, how to patch up her own part of it--including moving into the role of the girl with the promising future that Bobbie has bowed out of. Walmsley is a talented writer, and there are many sharp, haunting moments here. In the end, though, her story plays itself out by going on too long. After a lot of scrutiny, even unhappy families start to all sound alike and their sad song feels like a stuck record. Still, it's evident that Walmsley is more than a one-note writer, so stay tuned for her next number. Bright talent, dark novel. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

The pain of a younger sister growing up in a dysfunctional New Orleans family is the subject of Walmsley's potentially moving but ultimately disappointing first novel. Gray has always felt inferior to her older sister, Bobbie--a feeling fostered by their father, Max, who is convinced of Bobbie's brilliance and Gray's mediocrity. When Bobbie is diagnosed as schizophrenic, Gray tries to take her place and win Max's affection. It is not until Max dies that Gray, Bobbie, and their mother, Mudie, can fashion separate, meaningful lives for themselves. Clumsy and unbelievable dialog and underdeveloped characters mar the story, and Gray's claustrophobic self-absorption makes it difficult to care for her. At the end of the novel, as she settles in Chicago, works in a bookstore, and begins to write, Gray becomes much more interesting, almost making the novel worth reading. Still, a marginal purchase.
- Patricia Ross, Westerville P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.