CBR Book 7: The Weird Sisters

The Weird Sisters, by Eleanor Brown

There are, among the many, two subsets of fiction; one involves the lives of those immersed in academia, the other concerns itself with those who have left home to find themselves, only to discover that they must go back to move forward. If you combine these two subsets and throw in a fairly large smattering of Shakespearean quotes, you have the very excellent The Weird Sisters.

The weird sisters of literary fame are, as I'm sure you're aware, the three witches who appear in Shakespeare's Hamlet. Eleanor Brown's "weird sisters" are the Andreas girls: Rosalind (Rose), Bianca (Bean), and Cordelia (Cordy). Their father is a renowned Shakespearean scholar and professor, and so they have grown up with the Bard's works, and accordingly, whenever anyone in the family has something important to say, they borrow Shakespeare's words. Thus, the announcement that their mother has breast cancer comes from their father in the form of "Come, let us go; and pray to all the gods/For our beloved mother in her pains."

The three sisters are reunited, ostensibly to help care for their mother, but really to escape and/or muddle through their own problems. Rose, a mathematics professor, has never left the safe confines of her hometown (a lovely, idyllic little hippie-fied bubble of academia), and is struggling with the fact that her fiance (a chemistry professor) has been offered a three-year stint at Oxford, and wants her to join him there. Rose's bigger problem is that she's that kind of person who runs everyone else's lives for them, and is convinced that her family will crumble to pieces without her there. Bean, who ran away to New York City, returns when it has been discovered that she's been embezzling funds from the law firm at which she worked. She stole the money to fund her apparently glamorous lifestyle of booze, couture, and men. Cordy is a free-wheeling gypsy who realizes she must give up her rambling ways when she finds herself accidentally pregnant. While they're all under one roof again, they naturally learn about themselves, re-connect with each other, care for their mother (and father), and more or less solve all their problems. Hey, I didn't claim the novel was ground-breaking in any way.

Despite the straightforwardness of the story arcs, this is still a really enjoyable read, particularly if one is a) a reader, and b) a fan of Shakespeare. The various references and the explanation of the sisters' characters based on their namesakes are interesting and amusing. The characters are all reasonably realistic, and I think that most of us would find a bit of ourselves in each sister. The narrative voice, though, is what makes the novel really interesting: it's in first person plural - in essence as though the three sisters are narrating together. It's a bit confusing at first, but it really strengthens the idea that, although they are very different and they don't always like each other, they share a common bond and history that goes beyond their individual stories. I also really love stories that take place in academic settings. There's this notion that these people are all so terribly educated or smart or clever, but of course their lives are actually a mess, and they are often forced to find a way to perform life functions of the most practical and mundane kind. It's just always entertaining to me; I guess because I sort of wish I lived in that world, but I don't have the drive for a PhD.

Anyway, if you're looking for a good novel with interesting and mostly sympathetic characters, I'd recommend this one. I think I found it in the NYT Book Review ... it's new, and apparently Ms. Brown's first novel? It's probably safe to assume we will be seeing more of her. A very fun way to pass the time!