Customer Reviews

Invisible Sisters

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Jessica Handler's "Invisible Sisters" is a clear-eyed, compelling story of the devastation a chance genetic flaw can visit on a brilliant, promising, loving family. The devastation of one rare blood disease followed by another. Cruel and unfathomable anomalies that ultimately ended both her younger sisters' lives and bludgeoned the survivors.

Ms. Handler tells the story of the impact on her sisters, her parents and herself with brutal honesty and the engaging vision of a narrator who sees things as a child, an adolescent, a young woman and finally an adult Someone who is all along trying to find her natural self. Someone who experiences other,'normal' life struggles, like all of us, but someone who, we come to see, can not be like all of us."Invisible Sisters" is by turns joyful, sad, hopeful and tragic. Nonetheless, the book is uplifting, a true tribute to her sisters and her parents, each person stretched as far as he or she could go.

Raphael Richman

Hank Somma, Writer/Photographer, and Facilitator of Writers Of Like Mind, Critique Group. (Dallas, GA)

I am struck by the ease of Jessica's writing, in moving delicately through time, then back again to the present, as if we are sharing her experience while having coffee at Starbucks.

I imagined my blood running through my veins, as tear drops, racing through my body, as Jessica wrote, "I could not save my sisters, but in my journals, I worked to save myself."

I could never write a memoir because, for one thing, I had a relatively normal childhood, and, for another, I didn't keep a journal. However, Jessica Handler did keep a journal and had a very difficult childhood, being the "well" sister. I viewed this book as sort of a memorial to her two younger siblings, Sarah and Susie, who had very different but ultimately fatal diseases. The impact of this tragic coincidence on a family is almost unimaginable, and Jessica Handler documents her family's lives in a rather scattered manner, something like an out-of-order scrapbook. I can't say that this jumbling of events made the book hard to follow, since it's really a very fast read. Thank heavens, because I didn't really want to spend too much time in this household. It's not surprising that young Jessica used drugs and toxic friendships as her escapes from survivor's guilt and the widening chasm between her parents. I was also glad that this book was not as tear-inducing as I thought it would be, since the tone is really rather matter-of-fact. Handler's father is a very intriguing figure, a labor union attorney who moved his family to Atlanta in the 1960s and who had his own demons to face as he struggled to be the head of a family whose members were dying. Her mother appears to be rock solid through all the tragedy, but the failure on the part of both parents to encourage expressions of grief was ultimately destructive to their family dynamic. I'm guessing that pouring out her memories on paper was cathartic for the author, and in the interview in the back of the book she says that she was surprised at how much she laughed while writing it. Needless to say, she doesn't share any of this humor with the reader. Her husband also has a very bizarre story to tell, and their complicated histories draw them together.

If ever there was an excuse for an author to indulge in self pity and overwhelming depression, losing two of your siblings would be it. However, Jessica Handler avoids melodrama and cliché in her moving, but clear-eyed memoir that honors her sisters' memory and shows that she has the courage to live her own life on her own terms. Plus, the woman is a damn good writer. I was impressed by "Invisible Sisters" and rank it on the same level as "Liars Club" and "Autobiography of a Face."

At first glance, this seems a somewhat random memoir. Ms. Handler intermingles past and present, sharing bits and pieces of her family in no particular order. But dig deeper and it becomes apparent that the author knows exactly what she is doing and where she is going. The title is a perfect reflection of what Ms. Handler is sharing and exploring. What strikes me the most is how vulnerable children are to the vagaries of life. Where adults may be more equipped to place their experiences in context (although even adulthood doesn't protect us - witness Ms. Handler's father's response), children are trying to make sense of the world at the same time that they are coping with extraordinary circumstances. It takes bravery to go back, as an adult, and face your fears and confusions. I was grateful to see that, in the end, Ms. Handler was moving forward, carrying her past with her - not with fear - but with love. Very moving.

Jessica Handler's Invisible Sisters is a memoir the surviving, "well sibling." Suffering the deaths of both her younger sisters who suffered from diseases of opposite ends of the gene spectrum, Handler masterfully documents the events surrounding and following the illnesses.

This book moves quickly. It bounces between time, much like memory actually presents itself to consciousness. The result is a memoir that feels very honest and real to the experience and has an energy that makes the reader both mourn with and admire the writer. Having dealt with the loss of two sisters, a crumbling family unit, and a rebellious (albeit engaging) early adulthood, Handler never shies away from the grittier, less flattering aspects of her family life. She does not grow sullen and milk the reader for pity. She does not overanalyze her situations. With bravery and grace, she recounts the events that shaped her into the person she has become today, and this reader found the trip to be refreshingly pleasant and moving.

While much of the book is centered around the crumbling family due to death, illness (of differing varieties), and divorce, the unexpected ending of Handler's own wedding was an enjoyable, even cathartic way to tie together the threads of a sad story. In this ending, we realize the energy of the prose is driven by the same force that the author shares with her mother--a determined spirit. While Handler appoints herself the family historian and artifact collector, she also resolutely gives multiple layers of meaning to the repeated phrase, "genes have long memories."

This is a book well worth reading, and one that I greatly enjoyed.

I understand how it is to write your own memoir. Only those that did not have a normal childhood could, as I did. I can only surmise what she went through and is still going through. I read some of the reviews, they were well written, but a little long. I think the best one was written by Hank Somma - short and to the point, particularly how he ended it with what Jessica Handler had written, "I could not save my sisters, but in my journals, I worked to save myself." What a profound statement. That said it all.

This is a truthful, telling story of Jessica Handler, who grew up as the only healthy child out of three sisters due to a genetic disorder. That disorder ends up killing both of her sisters.

Now middle aged, Jessica takes us back to her life growing up in Atlanta in the 1960s and '70s. We see the inner lives of her family and what her friends didn't see when they looked at her handsome father, a popular lawyer, and her attractive mother.

We see scenes from her parents' budding romance at college in Boston and their early lives as a happy family with three precocious daughters. Slowly, however, the fairytale crumbles and each family member tumbles down a cliff.

Jessica paints the life of her sister Susie so clearly I feel as if I knew her personally and feel almost sure I was friends with her. Sadly, Susie dies at age six, inciting the destruction of the family and the lifelong depression of her father.

We see the rough emotional times as Jessica traverses through childhood to adulthood. We glimpse at the first date she had in her late 30s with Mickey--now her husband--who worked with her at CNN. Over drinks he reveals to her he faked his death as a young adult and left the country after a girlfriend gave birth to his baby.

Although her sisters and father are deceased, and she seems to have a great relationship with her mother and husband, I want to know more about Jessica's life now. I hope she writes a sequel.

For someone who has dealt with far more tragic family circumstances than anyone should, the author provides a very deep but surprisingly positive perspective. Lesser people in the same situations would have caved in to depression, blame, and would have grown to be bitter and angry. Handler did not- her story is that of a girl who shoulders too much responsibility, a young adult who struggles for identity, and a woman who is a survivor. The author gives us a very honest and open view of her life and her family, and her strength (whether she realizes it or not) is nothing short of astonishing.

This is a story of the urge to live in the face of an avalanche of reasons to give up. If you've lost a sibling, or -- what resonated with me, a dear friend -- and endured the effects and witnessed your family or (my case again) your other friends, you'll find this story painfully, honestly close to the bone.

Jessica moves back and forth in time to paint a picture that reveals itself as pixels on a screen coalesce to high definition. This story will break your heart, then put it back together stronger for the experience.

An important book for all of us with the luxury of extra years.