The Phantom Limbs of the Rollow Sisters

Read The Phantom Limbs of the Rollow Sisters Storyline:

Renowned author Timothy Schaffert’s celebrated debut novel, reissued here in an entirely new paperback edition, chronicles two sisters on the cusp of womanhood as they struggle to understand their father’s suicide as well their mother’s abandonment of them many years earlier. On graduating from high school, the sisters are once again set adrift, this time by their grandmother who leaves them for Florida. In order to survive, and perhaps even thrive, on their path to adulthood, they must learn to reconcile their pasts and discover how to depend upon themselves as well as on each other.In a story that rises out of the spare Nebraska landscape, Schaffert delivers a redemptive tale about two young women searching for wholeness and love.From Publishers WeeklySchaffert's heartfelt debut features two young misfit sisters left alone to run a junk shop in rural Nebraska. Mabel and Lily Rollow (21 and 18, respectively) have inherited the jumbled store from their grandmother, who left their small town a few months earlier. This latest act of neglect opens the childhood wounds of their father's suicide and their mother's abandonment, the phantom limbs through which they feel very real pain. The sisters draw strength from each other, but are as different as they can be physically and temperamentally; seductive Lily is kittenish and quixotic, while heavyset, bespectacled Mabel is the sensible one. The girls do agree on their mutual object of affection, 19-year-old Jordan, the cheap wine-swilling "cute ruin" who likens his preoccupation with suicide to "having a crush on a mean girl." But he falls for Lily and the lovebirds embark on a road trip to the Southwest to find the girls' mother, leaving Mabel alone to run the shop and exorcise her demons (a process that involves visiting a brain-damaged, former glue-sniffing addict rumored to communicate with the dead). Though the emotional terrain is familiar, and Schaffert occasionally overexplains his characters, the wistful coming-of-age story is solidly crafted and enlivened by quirky, Gothic touches and gentle humor. National publicity; online reading group guide. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From Library JournalLily and Mabel's father committed suicide, their mother left them with their grandmother, and their grandmother left them for a Florida condo. Closing in on their twenties, they seek to have normal lives but have no model for what normal is. The dusty, cluttered junk shop where they live is a metaphor for their eccentric and confused lives. Lily, the younger of the two, steals a car and heads for Mexico to find Mom. Mabel, abandoned once more, clears out the junk shop by moving everything into the front yard and chooses as a boyfriend someone who understands loss his sister drowned in a pool accident. Schaffert creates funny, bizarre, and yet touching characters who possess depth and breadth. The result is yet another madcap coming-of-age story but one that speaks to the plight of the current generation. Despite suicide, abandonment, poverty, and isolation, it appears that the Rollow girls will always muddle through. Full of surprises, Schaffert's debut is recommended for public libraries. Joanna M. Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Coll. of Continuing Education Lib., Providence Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.