Nearly every voracious female reader can point to a favorite book about sisters — from the blockbuster My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult to childhood classic Little Women by Louisa May Alcott to the widely studied Jane Austen novels to the critically acclaimed We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson.
And it’s almost a tradition that every year, a crop of books featuring sisters appears. Sisters’ close relationships figure prominently in many recent and upcoming releases — Sisters by Daisy Johnson, The Wicked Sister by Karen Dionne, Girls of Brackenhill by Kate Moretti, as well as my upcoming novel, Not My Boy.
And the new frontier of DNA testing brings all kinds of sisters to the forefront, as explored by the bestselling memoir Inheritance by Dani Shapiro, and the upcoming novel A Million Reasons Why by Jessica Strawser.
Readers who have sisters or long for sisters seem to have an endless appetite for reading about that close relationship — and the publishing industry regularly delivers. But what about the people who write about sisters? Do they share any of the same traits or inspirations?
I knew my own reasons for writing about sisters — my book is dedicated to my sister, and I have three daughters, no sons in the house. What I know about sisters and their laughter and their drama could definitely fill several books. Which got me thinking — do these other authors all have sisters or daughters? Or have they always wanted a sister, and been jealous of people who had one?
In recent interviews, I posed these questions to several of the authors. It turns out Karen Dionne, author of the psychological thriller The Wicked Sister, also has a sister and daughters, and she laughingly explains that while no one in her family is a psychopath like the sister in her book, she did feel she understood deeply how two people in the same household could experience the same events completely differently — an element which figures prominently in her novel.
Kate Moretti, author of Girls of Brackenhill, a gothic thriller about a woman and her sister’s unsolved disappearance? Check and check — Kate has a sister and daughters. (She even took her daughters to scout locations for the setting of the book — and ended up on an adventure of her own, as they were chased off private land. Creating sister memories for a whole other generation!)
Jessica Strawser, author of A Million Reasons Why, a topical novel about half sisters who discover each other as adults through DNA, never had a sister — but always longed for one, inspired by the close relationship between her mother and her aunt, who kept the family awake with their peals of laughter late into the night.
Of course, writers never know for sure where their inspiration will come from — or what it will inspire — but sometimes it comes from very close by, as close as the twin bed across the hall, or the shared clothes in the closet.
My own sister was initially a bit worried that I dedicated my book to her. Like many siblings of writers, she knew anything from her past could be mined for material — good or bad. Disguised or not-so-disguised. (And my daughters? Well, they believe everything is about them.) So I had to allay everyone’s fears that no actual events from anyone’s childhood were featured in the book — but the closeness and fierceness were there, front and center.
It makes me wonder what sisters who are both writers — like Susan and Eliza Minot or Attica and Tembi Locke — would do if they both were inspired by the exact same people or events from their childhood?
That could make for some very lively sisterly discussions around the Thanksgiving table. Not to mention fascinating sister reading.
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