FROM TIME TO TIME I love posting on here about sister-themed books ( um, no I’m not talking about Sweet Valley High) that I’ve come across and enjoyed, because it always starts a juicy dialogue about what everyone has been reading lately. My current recommendation?
Early on in the summer I read Veronica by Mary Gaitskill and was so enamored by the female characters and their complex, heartbreaking relationships with each other. The book chronicles a lifetime of relationships but focuses specifically on the friendship between the narrator, a former model, and her much older colleague at a copy editing agency who is dying of AIDS.
I find the only downside to loving a book this much is that I mourn the characters when I’m done! I haven’t been able to get into any book as much since. Any recommendations? What sister-lit gems have you discovered lately? Do dish…
(P.S. Here’s a past sisterhood reading list from our bloggers and readers.)
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“Veronica” is an excellent pick. Not only are the relationships between the characters complex as you mentioned, but the complexity is also deepened by the time jumping structure that Gaitskill uses along with the frequent juxtaposition of beautiful prose and often grotesque realities. A very well written book.
If your looking for a good southern novel about the travails of sisterly and other familial relationships, I would definitely take a look at “Rich in Love” by Josephine Humphreys, which is about the changes the Odum family (father mother, and two daughters) must confront when the mother decides to leave the family.
Love Mary Gaitskill. Years ago, I had the great good fortune to take a fiction class from her as part of the New York State Writer’s Institute summer program. I was changed by it, as I am every time I read one of her books. “Veronica” is a marvel.