Surrender, Dorothy: Reviews

The Kitchen Daughter

The Kitchen Daughter, by Jael McHenry, is an ambitious book. For one, it's narrated by a young woman with Asperger's. For another, Jael McHenry does not have Asperger's. And for a third, there are ghosts.

It's interesting that I read this book write after The Murderer's Daughters, because both books are stories of sisters and their struggles for dominance over one another. In this story, Ginny, the older sister, resists younger Amanda's efforts to get her diagnosed with Asperger's after their parents die unexpectedly. Amanda doesn't think Ginny should stay in the house alone after having been sheltered from so much as going to the store alone her whole life. Ginny worries any diagnosis will give Amanda the upper hand and reduce her chances of staying put, even as she begins to acknowledge her need to hide in closets for hours with her hands in her parents' shoes.

The best part of this debut novel is the dialogue. The character of Gert, the cleaning lady, has some great lines about grief. And the conversations between Amanda and Ginny are jarring to someone like me who has only recently begun to say what I really think instead of pretending like everything is always okay and then seething later.

For example:

Amanda says, "God, are you even listening to me?"

I tell her the truth. "No."

"This is your future we're talking about!"

"You're talking about it. I'm not."

"This is the bottom line," she says. "Will you go to the doctor to make me happy?"

"No."

"That makes me unhappy."

"Then be unhappy," I say. We're all unhappy sometimes. I don't see why Amanda should get to be exempt.

I think that's what I took from this book. I have no idea if the Asperger's parts are accurate, because I don't have any Aspies in my immediate sphere. I do like the authenticity of the relationship between the sisters and thinking about saying what you really feel and what that does to a relationship. I really could've done without the ghosts, as they didn't add anything to the story and seemed sort of thrown in as an afterthought to me. The story would've been much better without them.

Read it for the dialogue, skip the ghosts.

The Murderer's Daughters

It's hard to believe The Murderer's Daughters by Randy Susan Meyers is a debut novel. I really like reading debuts. The first novel is, in my mind, the book the author has been carrying around for years, the magnum opus of a writing career up to that point.

The Murderer's Daughters is an ambitious book, beginning when sisters Lulu and Merry are little girls, and heartbreaking in its plotline. From the very beginning, the girls are thrust into a nightmare when their father kills their mother and knifes Merry. They're shuttled from grandma to grandma until finally everyone dies and their one remaining aunt sends them off to an extremely rough orphanage.

Meyers follows the girls from that terrible childhood well into their adult lives. The importance of this novel is in its shining character complexity. Lulu, the eldest, survives better through childhood but grows into an unhappy and inflexible adult until yet another tragic event shakes her loose. Merry is sweeter and softer and also something of a failure to launch as she wobbles through adulthood -- living in Lulu's guesthouse and stealing her coffee every morning -- though it is Merry who ultimately prevails in an event that shakes loose years of shoulds and prods herinto at last becoming a fully formed adult.

The girls, enmeshed by necessity, evolve through every aspect of their painful lives. The outcome is gratifying, one I wish always happened but I'm certain doesn't, as I've found complex characters are difficult to find either in novels or in real life. So many people get stuck in old patterns so deep that even an attempt to change just mires them worse. These sisters' ability to love each other and grow through everything they experience, recognizing finally how they've been holding each other back unintentionally, is powerful and beautiful.

The writing is great. The book is important. The story is tough to read. It's very sad. There are some trigger scenes for anyone who has experienced domestic violence or substance abuse. If you're a lover of character development, this book is immensely satisfying and I highly recommend it.