The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman: a very human, complex and worthwhile tale

The three Story sisters, Elv, Meg and Claire, live with their mother on Long Island. Beautiful and mysterious, they are the object of envy and intrigue. But their happy existence is brought abruptly to an end when Elv and Claire share an encounter with a man that will change them forever. As the girls grow into young women, their secret begins to destroy their close bond. And as their choices haunt and change them, each realises that they have a fate that they must meet alone …

I found this one to be a challenging read, partly because of the subject matter, and I had to put it down for quite some while several times in order to recover, but it is incredibly good, being literary, poetic and accessible all at the same time. No small feat then. Plus there are some startling observations on the intrigues and small battles of family life and the three sisters themselves are never less than gripping:

The sunlight was orange. They had to remember that. Meg would make certain they did. She fetched a piece of paper and wrote down the word orange, then folded the paper in half. They could cut up pears and write down all of the colors of the light and listen to people laugh and smell the blooms on the chestnut tree and forget about the rest of the world.

Indeed, it’s an incredibly rich mix of a very complex and human story and several fascinating characters, including the minor ones. Actually there wasn’t a weak character amongst them. I found it particularly interesting that after those days when I wasn’t reading the book, whenever I picked it up again, I could remember exactly what was going on, with whom, and where I was in the story at any time. A rare experience for me as usually I have to remind myself of story and character in those circumstances but this book is so razor-sharp and frankly very good that you don’t forget it easily.

You have to be prepared, as I’ve already mentioned, for a lot of darkness and for good reason. None of the three sisters are simple or particularly happy people, and I found my sympathies swaying between the three of them as their lives and problems are slowly and subtly revealed and developed. On the whole my favourite was Meg as she’s the sister who’s not as heavily entwined in their group as the others and I always love an outsider, but Elv and Claire, their shared secret and the decisions they take in the here and now are always equally strong.

I also thought that Hoffman treated the more minor characters extremely well, as I’ve already mentioned above. I loved Annie, the sisters’ mother, and Natalia, their grandmother, as well as Pete, Annie’s boyfriend later in the book. And Lorry also, Elv’s boyfriend, is sharply portrayed, although his influence is far darker than Natalia’s or Pete’s. Indeed it’s this careful balance of the light and the dark in the spread of minor characters that acts as a much-needed counterpoint to the shadowy and sometimes bitter story of the sisters:

It had been a horrible day, but Annie was surprised to find that she was glad to be alive. She wanted to be right where she was, in between the moment of hearing Claire’s voice and the instant when she went back downstairs, ready for whatever happened next.

It’s here that I feel I should mention the one point where, for me, this rather splendid book temporarily stumbled: about three-quarters of the way through, I began to feel oppressed by the sheer weight of misery inherent in the story and frankly became rather hysterical in my attempt to find a contrasting lightness anywhere. However, the author soon regained my full attention by the gentle twists and surprises that happen in the last quarter of the novel and I was from that point on once again thoroughly under her spell.

After all, how, truly, can anyone fail to be engaged with such a classy combination of poetry, grief, hope, honesty and family dynamics, all seasoned with a light sprinkling of magic, secrets and, possibly, redemption? I defy you to resist it …

The Story Sisters, Harper Press 2010, ISBN: 978 0 00 735152 7

[Anne thinks there’s always something more, and more sinister, to families than meets the eye and this book hasn’t changed her mind on that subject.]

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