Sister Crazy - Hardcover

Richler, Emma

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0007118228 ISBN 13: 9780007118229

Publisher: Flamingo, 2001

Synopsis

A wickedly smart and funny novel about growing up in a close-knit family.

Emma Richler charts the capricious course of Jemima Weiss, a deeply lovable but haunted young woman, as she navigates life in a sprawling, eccentric family.

Jemima Weiss grew up with a special feeling for Action Man, American Westerns, the Knights of the Round Table, bagels with cheddar on the top and, above all else, her family: her rumpled father, glamorous mother and four remarkable siblings. Now grown into a worldly yet deeply troubled woman, Jem reflects on her days as a young girl, even as she struggles not to be engulfed by the present.

An edgy and deeply funny account about growing up in a close-knit family, and the difficulties of breaking away; or rather, of making oneself break away from the security of the family bonds.

An extraordinarily brilliant piece of writing. Emma Richler has chosen to tell a classic tale, one which writers often cut their teeth on, but the voice and the style she brings to this novel is simply astonishing. The combination of ingenious comedy and absolutely devastating bombshells of detail makes this book a rare thing indeed.

This author comes with a pedigree – she is the daughter of Mordecai Richler, great man of Canadian letters.

About this title

Review:

Jem Weiss, the funny, temperamental narrator of Emma Richler's debut novel, Sister Crazy, has to navigate the proverbial perils of growing up within a sprawling, eccentric family. This coming-of-age tale is a well-worn path for debut novelists and at times Jem's stream-of-consciousness meditations on topics as diverse as Action Man, King Arthur and Einstein's Theory of Relativity recall the alienated, elliptical musings of Catcher in the Rye's Holden Caulfield or The Bell Jar's Esther Greenwood. However, this isn't the usual tale of teenagers not belonging, but rather a story of belonging too much, of not knowing how to grow up and leave this wonderful familial cocoon. Jem is almost painfully close to her parents and siblings: her serene and almost supernaturally gifted mother; her ramshackle Jewish father; and her Action Man-playing elder brother, Jude. Then there's Harriet, the sensitive and capricious younger sister; Gus, the science-loving youngest sibling; and finally Ben, the wise, patient eldest brother.

These sweet, humorous family vignettes are juxtaposed alongside fragments of Jem's life many years later, fully-grown and suffering from an undisclosed mental illness. The once overly delicate and ethereal Harriet is now Jem's greatest comfort, a sensible and calming influence on a woman who has failed to find her place in a more hostile adult world. At one point Jem asks, "When does childhood end?"--a phrase that seems to capture the essence of her predicament. Her incredibly strong feelings for her family members remain suspended in time, but their lives have all moved on and the reliable demarcations of childhood have evaporated forever. While the surreal family anecdotes sometimes outstay their welcome and the source of Jem's subsequent troubles remains unsatisfactorily muddy, this is still an inspired debut, seamlessly fusing comedy and sadness to fashion a fresh and original look at a familiar theme. --Jane Morris

Review:

‘A joy to read.’ Alice Munro

‘An impressive and important first novel. Not an excess word – both comic and deeply serious. A truly dazzling debut.’ Beryl Bainbridge

‘There is an enticingly breathless quality to Richler’s prose, and in a childlike dash, she guides us through her elegy for lost youth. Her incisive observations on the intricacies of family dynamics are by turns whimsical, intense and darkly funny. Emma Richler sees the comic in the tragic and her acute insights save “Sister Crazy” from self-indulgence.’ Anna Swan, TLS

‘Stunning...Richler has written a deeply moving book. Her language is electric, her formal poise astonishing in a first novel; her observations of the world of children, of the terror of madness, riveting. And she is bold and witty and will make you laugh out loud. This is an accomplished novel of the rites of passage from childhood into womanhood and the dangerous disquiet which can intervene. It should have an honoured place on the shelves, next to Sylvia Plath’s “The Bell Jar”.’ Lisa Appignanensi

'Richler's great achievement is that she has fashioned for Jem a voice that sounds right in the mouth of a smiley eight-year-old and that of a suicidal 35-year-old. Sister Crazy shows us with unflinching intensity what happens when a sweet family romance is never displaced.' Adam Begley, Guardian

About this edition

• Publisher: Flamingo
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0007118228
• ISBN 13: 9780007118229
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272