- Paperback: 230 pages
- Publisher: Allison & Busby (8 April 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0749004037
- ISBN-13: 978-0749004033
- Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 13 x 2.2 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,786,467 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
When Abigail Schiller's younger brother Sam disappears, unable to conform to his father's ideals of masculinity, Abby is devastated. Ten years later, and pregnant with her first child, Abby realises she must come to terms with her family's past and unearths a disturbing history.
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First Sentence
If you've never been inside a Catholic church, I'll show you what it's like to go there, believing, into the cool dark air with only the light from the sacristy to guide you. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
If you've never been inside a Catholic church, I'll show you what it's like to go there, believing, into the cool dark air with only the light from the sacristy to guide you. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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31 reviews
38 of 41 people found the following review helpful
A writer of remarkable depth
2 Aug 2000
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
A writer of remarkable depth, A. Manette Ansay offers the selective reader a banquet of language in her novel, SISTER. The author fashions exquisite phrases that form perfect and fragile images. It is a joy to read such complexity after the current deluge of popular titles, dressed in the quise of 'simplicity', and seeming more often like 'women's books'. SISTER tells a story that slowly follows the evolution of a young Catholic girl and her brother, growing up on an emotionally barren Wisconsin farm. The sister and brother endure the changes wrought upon the family as the mother takes a part-time job, while the son's battle with his father escalates with the passage of time, until the son finally disappears w/o a trace. In the hollow years that follow her brother's disappearance, the girl becomes a distant spectator, unable to fill the hole left by her younger brother, unable to bridge the distance between parents, precariously close to losing herself in the process. This is a quiet, concise book, a tale particularly familiar to those who have shared this rigidly structured religious (Catholic) background. Thoughtfully crafted, SISTER is not a novel for everyone. But for certain readers it is a work of art, carefully hung against a bare wall in a gilt frame.
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Eloquent writing with a slow start
23 Aug 2001
Format:Paperback
I will admit to not getting into Sister as quickly as I did with Vinegar Hill or Midnight Champagne. But around the 5th chapter of so, something happened. The groove of the story began to make an impression on me, and suddenly I found myself savoring the pages that followed. And upon completion of this wonderful novel, A. Manette Ansay has finally and wholly proved herself to me to be an author of incomparable merit and style.
Sister tells the story of 30-year-old Abigail Schiller as she prepares for the birth of her first child. During the course of her pregnancy, Abby reflects upon her childhood and its many facets. Growing up in the Schiller household was not easy. Abby's mother, a rigid Catholic housewife, was always good to her, but tended to turn the other cheek when it came to her father, a strict disciplinarian with chauvinistic views of male and female roles. And then there was Sam, Abby's lovable younger brother whom she protected and adored. Finally, after years of constant torment that dug at him by the picking hands of his father, Sam runs away for good. And over ten years later, Abby realizes, as a mother-to-be, she needs to reconcile her feelings of loss and love for her brother in order for her to move forward in her own life.
Revolving between past and present, Sister's chapters delve into a seemingly normal childhood and its secret, dark undertones, then flash-forwards to a seemingly normal adult life where every movement has some direct correlation to a moment in the past. A beautiful and powerful novel with action told in whispers that quietly unfolds as the pages are turned. Not a novel of great activity and one that may be hard to get into at first, but certainly after novel's end, readers will be left with a feeling of awe and satisfaction. Tremendously readable. Ansay will remain on my bookshelf for life.
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
A Very Moving Story of Love and Loss
29 Jun 2000
Format:Paperback
Sister, is the story of Abby Schiller, married, pregnant and still haunted by her abusive childhood and the disappearance of her younger brother over ten years ago. Now, as she's about to become a mother, Abby feels the need to revisit her past and put it to rest before the birth of her baby. And so she begins a journey to try to understand her abusive father, her mother, who always looked the other way and her sensitive, artistic brother who left at seventeen, never to be seen or heard from again. And what a journey it is. Ms Ansay is a wonderful, eloquent writer and the strength of her prose literally pulls you into the story and never lets you go. Her scenes are vivid and riveting. Her characters, beautifully drawn. This is a compelling story of love and loss, betrayal and finally forgiveness, written with honesty and insight. A powerful book in its own quiet way.
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