Sister Crazy

by Emma Richler

Book Overview

The sprawling Weiss family--as recalled by Jemima, the middle child in Emma Richler's amazing debut--live an almost idyllic existence. The feeling among the siblings is so palpable that we cannot help but share the acute nostalgia Jem experiences as she emerges from childhood. In a darkly humorous voice she tells of playing elaborate war games with toy Action Man figures, composing a survival book ("Always have some sports news at hand for when your dad is in hospital after a scary operation to do with a fatal disease"), closely observing her beautiful Mum to fathom her magic, weaving the story of the Grail quest into her brother Jude's life. Jem's extravagant tales of her eccentric beloved family will linger long after the last line.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385720890
• ISBN13: 9780385720892
• Release Date: June 2002
• Publisher: Anchor Books
• Length: 215 Pages
• Weight: 0.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

A lovely book you will not regret reading.

I've read the reviews of this book from readers across the country. Its clear that more than half of them did not understand this book and were made very uncomfortable by the writer's form and style. This is a wonderful book that shows the intricacies and inevitabilities of family love and devotion, and the damage that both can create. I know this "review" gives you no feeling for the plot of the book - I only wish people would read and enjoy this book, and not pay attention to the dilettantes who pretend to be experts on Ms. Richler's work.

Disjointed narrator, disjointed story

This scattershot plotted book is charming, funny, haunting, but is it a novel? You will adore the characters. Jem examines her family through the filters of medeival history and her somewhat skewed understanding of physics, with charming conclusions drawn. Her compilation of "evidence" as to just who and what her mother is (possibly a Druid, possibly a good witch) is especially entertaining. The wordplay between her and her brothers, "Rule 28," and her poetic descriptions of Harriet, her fey sister, make you want to move in with this family. But the book is circuitous and anecdotal, and the glimpses of the modern Jem leave the reader troubled, but with no answers. I was left feeling like a distraught neighbor, wringing my hands and saying, "But they were such a lovely family! What happened to poor Jem?"

Reader, beware.

This is a tricky book. The narrator of the book is picking through childhood memories as she tries to find peace in her adult life. Most of the stories are hilarious, starting with the opening when she describes the Action Man figure she tormented as a child. It's hard for adult writers to effectively create a child's perspective and priorities but Richler's writing is convincing. The sneaky/ brilliant part of Richler's writing is how the reader can get caught unaware by its emotional force. I laughed my way through a lot of the book, and was surprised when I started to worry about the narrator, to care about her family. I was surprised by the poignancy of memories of my own childhood her writing evoked. It's definitely a book to which I will return a few more times.

lovely, lyrical and quietly wonderful

With quietly stunning prose, delightful humor and fierce intelligence, Emma Richler paints a swirling, impressionistic portrait of a family and captures quite piercingly the psyche of one very perceptive girl.