Novels Now

There’s rarely a sole cause for the separation of lives. It’s a sequence of events, an inexorable chain reaction where each small link is fundamental, like a snake of upended dominoes. -From The Sister, page 5-

Poppy Adam’s debut novel, The Sister, begins with an elderly woman waiting for her sister to arrive home after a 50 year absence. Ginny has lived her entire life in the family house - a broken down, monolith tucked into the countryside of England. She is a recluse who peers from behind her windows at the neighbors and lives an obsessively ordered existence bordering on paranoia. Vivi, on the other hand, is socially outgoing - an older woman who looks ten years younger. Years earlier,Vivi separated herself from her family and appeared to never look back. But now she has returned and this event will become the catalyst which allows Ginny’s long repressed grievances to emerge.

The novel occurs over a four day period and is narrated from Ginny’s point of view. As Ginny remembers her childhood with Vivi, the reader begins to understand the source of her neuroses. Ginny’s father, Clive, was a famous lepidopterist and Ginny assisted him with his obsessive study of moths. The moths become another character in the book, which in my opinion elevated the novel from a so-so gothic tale to an exceptional first work.

The Sister is about mental illness, addiction and the dynamics of family, but it is also about nature vs. nurture and whether or not it is choice or biology which dictates our behavior. Adams uses the moth as a symbol to underline these concepts.

I can mimic the scent of a flower so that a moth will direct itself towards the scent, and kills itself. Each time each moth will kill itself. It is this constancy that makes them a scientific delight - you do not need to factor in a rogue element of individuality. - From The Sister, page 55-

The Sister is a spellbinding work, one which immerses the reader completely in the story and builds to a relentless and shocking end. Adams’ development of Ginny’s character is like a slow train gathering speed and momentum. The sense of doom, of things unraveling provides the tension for the novel.

Readers who like all loose ends tied up may struggle with this book. Adams allows for reader interpretation of certain events, and Ginny’s reliability as a narrator is questionable. The Sister will appeal to readers who like to work their way through a web of information, untangling it as they go. It is a thoughtful novel which explores the darker side of human nature.

Highly recommended; rated 4.5/5. (more…)

Arthur: How can you tell a cannibal?
Vivi: Well, they’re the only ones left, silly.
Arthur: No, before they’ve eaten the others.
Vivi: Oh, that. They’ve just got a look about them.

I received this arc from the Barnes and Noble First Look Book Club. It is so wonderful to be a part of this program because the authors are also on the message boards and will answer questions from readers. I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed reading Poppy Adams’ responses to the questions posed. I will definitely be reading more of her work when it comes out. The Sister is her first novel.

Originally titled The Time of Emergence, and called The Behaviour of Moths in the UK, The Sister is a book where, after reaching the end, the reader may be left with more questions unanswered than answered. There are multiple interpretations that could be made about several different occurrences in the book. For me, that’s what makes this story so fascinating. I know that may be more of a frustration to some, though.

Vivien (Vivi) and Virginia (Ginny) are two sisters who grew up in a countryside mansion with lepidopterist ancestors. Their maternal grandfather and father were both lepidopterists, and Ginny becomes a lepidopterist. What is a lepidopterist? It’s a person who studies moths and butterflies. There is much discussion of the behavior of moths in this book, but it is an essential aspect of the story. While reading and after finishing the book, I realized many parallels between the behavior of moths and the behavior of the characters in the novel. This is a book I’ll probably re-read at some point to catch all the connections between the two.

Vivi and Ginny have been separated for decades, and the reasons why become apparent as the story unfolds. Very different from each other, Vivi is outgoing and leaves home for London at a young age, while Ginny is an introvert and a homebody. In fact, as the novel opens, we get the sense that Ginny hasn’t left her home for many, many years. Vivien decides to come back to the house, stating to Ginny that as sisters, they should spend their old age together. The entire novel only takes place over a few days, but as each day unfolds, we are also given glimpses from the past and why they have been separated for so long. All of this is told from Ginny’s perspective, though, and as Ginny and Vivi discuss their history together, they both realize that they saw their childhood in distinctly different ways. These differences are crucial to figuring out what is going on in the story.

What is going on in the story? I don’t want to tell you much, because it has a really good, creepy, gothic, Hitchcock feel to it that is better left to finding out by reading the story. If you don’t mind not having everything wrapped up in the end, and if you like having multiple interpretations of a storyline, you’ll love this book. I really enjoyed it, and the more I think about it, the more I love it.

2008, 275 pp.
Rating: 4.5/5

In her debut novel, The Sister, former BBC producer Poppy Adams used her photographer’s eye and mind to conjure up a unique tale of two sisters, Ginny and Viv, and their lifetime of secrets that tore their family apart. The story opened with Ginny, in her seventies, waiting for the arrival of her sister, Vivien, who she has not seen in almost fifty years. Once Vivien arrived, the reader must decipher between a past and present story line that unravels the disastrous family secrets – and keeps the reader wondering which sister is in the right until the last few chapters.

The Hitchcock-weird feeling of the characters can be downright bone chilling. Ginny narrated the story, and throughout her tale, little idiosyncrasies cropped up about Ginny, like her wearing of two wristwatches – one standard and one digital – that she meticulously checked for accuracy against her bedroom alarm clock. Or the drawer full of cannabis tea bags that she maintained to help her with arthritic pain but never liked to use because it caused a lack of symmetry in the drawer. Adams “spoon fed” Ginny’s personality quarks to the reader throughout The Sister, resulting in the nagging hunch that Ginny may not be a reliable narrator.

Then Adams, through Ginny’s narration, drew a picture of Vivien that was equally unsettling. Vivien was selfish and attention seeking, often manipulating her relationship with Ginny for her own gains. Ginny had a major inferiority complex with her sister, and the way Vivien was depicted, one could see why: smart, beautiful and full of creative ideas. You never get the sense though that Viv was a good person (through Ginny’s eyes), but the reader cannot doubt the love between them.

The Sister has the making of a great novel, especially for readers of Gothic literature: an old house, eccentric characters and a secret to be discovered. However, it has an obvious flaw – The Moths. The sisters’ father, Clive, was an expert in moths and taught his craft to Ginny when she was a teenager. Throughout the first half of the novel, The Moths are major characters. The reader learned about different types of moths, their importance to scientific research, how one caught them, how to kill them, how they transform from a caterpillar into a moth and what’s inside the cocoon during the transformation process.

All of this scientific knowledge took up pages of the story. While it was well written, it bogged the story down. When the reader finished, you can see how and why moths were important to The Sister’s plot, but perhaps Adams could have arrived at this point in different way. I almost abandoned The Sister because of the darned moths – and though I am glad I did not, I still have to shake my head about why they took up such a prominent place during the first half of the novel.

Once you get past The Moths, the suspense and mystery built masterfully into a real page-turner. I would recommend The Sister to readers with that disclaimer: have patience during the first half of the book and then prepare to be awed during the second. Adams made a promising debut, and I look forward to her future stories. (3.5/5)