Review: The Sisters, by Nancy Jensen

Writer Nancy Jensen's first novel, The Sisters, starts with heartbreak, and continues from there.  The teacups on the cover are a clever insuniation of the how things that are beautiful can be broken; thankfully, they also portray how things that are broken can still be beautiful.

**SPOILER ALERT: It is difficult to discuss this book without giving away a small part of the resolution.  I will do my best.  If you're worried, skip to the bottom for the final review.**

The almost three hundred page novel opens with teenage sisters Bertie and Mabel living with their stepfather, who is a disgusting excuse for a human being, in 1920s Kentucky.  Most readers will immediately know something is Wrong in that house, but the truth of just how awful things have gotten isn't revealed until much later in the novel.  Jensen is masterful at making you completely involved with these girls in just one chapter, and at ripping your heart out as they are separated over a terrible misunderstanding that will affect the rest of their lives.  (I am serious, it was almost physically painful to read.)

Beginning with Chapter 2, Jensen traces the broadening stories of the two girls, and their subsequent families, as separate strands.  Each girl reinvents herself in an effort to escape the past, with outward success, but inner turmoil that is not so easily washed away.  The repercussions of Bertie's anger and bitterness extend far-reaching tendrils in her children and grandchildren, most of whom are, frankly, somewhat unlikable products of the secret horror that has shadowed their family.  Mabel's cobbled family is more emotionally successful, but the guilt and sorrow she carries with her threatens her sanity on more than one occasion as she ages. 

The most difficult part of reading this story is the knowledge that it is all entirely unnecessary.  Had Bertie not been so devastatingly proud, if Mabel could have had just an ounce more courage in later years, had both not been so committed to silence, it all might have been averted or at least repaired.  The greatest sorrow of their lives comes to rest on the reader as he or she realizes that not all things are tied up in a bow, and that the constraints of society and one's own shortcomings really can lead to unrepairable ruin.  It is a testament to Jensen's fortitude as a writer that she allows this to happen, lets the reader squirm, without ever feeling the need to pull the drawstring and provide a tidy resolution.  Life is messy and painful, and she is honest and unafraid to let it be.  I do have to say, though, that in this instance, letting it all hang out to dry, so to speak, was a punishment for the reader.  I didn't need it tied up with a bow, but

*skip here if you are even thinking about reading*

... even if Bertie and Mabel never made up themselves, if in the end Jensen had closed with Grace, Bertie's grandaughter, beginning an internet search for the mysterious Mabel, using the clue that she was possibly seen on TV by Bertie just before she died, it would have been a much more satisfactory ending without being falsely sweet.

*start reading again*

The one problem with this story is one that many others like it have had; I simply didn't care as much about the later generations as I did Bertie and Mabel.  The beginning of the story made me so attached to the two of them, focused so strongly on them for several chapters, and their initial event was so devastating, that little in the subsequent characters lives seemed as important or interesting.  Also, because of the number of new characters grew as the generations passed, it became more difficult to track who was who, and to have an in-depth relationship with all of them.  As I mentioned, several were fairly unlikable, in part because Jensen was probably quite caught up in capturing the ripple effect of the past rather than making them seem like appealing people in their own right.  It was definitely the chapters on the elder generations that I enjoyed reading the most, and the resolution of Alma in particular was rewarding to read.  I felt as though Mabel's character wasn't wrapped up as well as Bertie's, and actually that Mabel's life in general could have been more filled out.  Jensen does an excellent job of carrying motifs through the tale, including adoption, suicide, and the idea that a family is what you make it; watching the results of parenting coming home to roost is both painful and thought-provoking, particularly considering trends in our current society. 

Ultimately, the book does seem to lose some focus, and several characters are just completely unlikable, which makes it a hard go for awhile.  The story of Mabel and Bertie was really what the reader is sold on at the beginning, and the book would have been better had that thread remained more prominent rather than straying into less-developed, and largely unlikable, characters.  However, the writing is excellent, and the initial third to half of the book is so excellent that it carries the reader through the less engaging portions to the final description of what actually happened on Bertie's graduation day; while the basic points of the secret are not a surprise, it heralds a return to Jensen's obvious familiarity and fondness for the initial characters whom the reader is much more closely bonded with.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars.  A tale of profound heartbreak, and its aftermath, that is at several points breathtaking; more likable later characters and a slightly tweaked ending would have earned a 5.