The Story with Sisters

Sibling relationships and specifically sisters is what I’m thinking about. I’m finishing a new novel. It’s about two half-sisters who feud about an inherited cottage in Italy with its resident ghost of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Sisters — we love to explore these complicated lifetime pairings. In real life and literature, sisters stand out. From Jane Austen with her siblings, to Emily Dickinson and hers, to those fabulous Brontes, the stories of siblings have made a huge impact on us, even if we’re only children. We devour the sisters who are subjects of novels, in a sister-craze that isn’t new, but seems like a current trend. Reading about sisters makes us consider our connections and how they affect our lives.  

I’ve been thinking a lot about that, following my brother’s death. It’s a subject that fascinates me and one I’m going to be exploring as I spend the month of February finishing the first draft of my new book.  

Sense and Sensibility is my favorite sisters story. I love the contrast in personality between the two, the tension hovering around the core of sisterly love, and the way their stories intertwine. I patterned my sisters on Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, because their differences fascinate me. In contemporary language, their story is one of reconciling the values of logic with feeling — a journey we all have to take. Having your opposite in your family life, while often frustrating, is the magic formula to growth and wholeness. And that’s what my story is about. That’s what all my stories are about. The journey to that more full existence.

And I threw in a dash of Brontes, so of course my sisters are both writers.