Like a Sister: A Novel [Paperback]

Janice Daugharty (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 21, 2000

It is 1956, and thirteeen-year-old Sister must raise her three siblings on her own, as her mother, Marnie, has a new boyfriend who isn't interested in kids.  Taking charge of her life, Sister befriends  a kindly neighbor named Willa, who appears to be everything a mother should be.  But when a respected and powerful man in town notices that Sister is blossoming -- unsupervised -- into quite a young woman, trouble starts to brew.  Willa soon steps in to intervene, and Sister thinks she may have found salvation. But within the pages of Like a Sister, things are never what they seem.

Depicting a vulnerable, heartbreaking, and richly Southern world, Like a Sister allows readers to gaze through the eyes of a young whom they will not soon forget.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Daugharty (Whistle; Earl in the Yellow Shirt) once again proves her talent for capturing the voices of a small-town South, writing eloquently of those on society's margins. Cornerville, Ga., in 1956 has standards of public respectability and resents "how that trashy bunch of Odumses have opened the old cafe and invaded the neighborhood." Thirteen-year-old Sister is just starting to fathom the hostility directed at her family: her mother, Marnie, is prostituting herself at the cafe run by her newest man, Sade Odums, and has all but abandoned her twin boys and baby to Sister's care. When one of the twins, Mickey, runs away and winds up in Alabama, Sade and Marnie refuse to inconvenience themselves enough to bring him home. Sister has to ask seedy church deacon and politician Ray Williams to retrieve her brother, and the man expects sexual favors in exchange. Luckily, Sister's neighbor, housewife Willa Lamar, is there to help. Willa, who represents the stability and security Sister has never known, comes to Sister's aid after the girl's bloody showdown with the treacherous Williams. Throughout, Daugharty sensitively describes the neglected girl's hardscrabble survival skills; Sister carries her pathetically filthy baby sister on barefoot ramblings that take her from the small stores where she wheedles food (primarily candy) for herself and the other children, and back to her family's garbage-strewn yard. Sister is a believable, resilient character, a lonely, confused child who must too soon shoulder adult responsibility. Her loyalty to her mother, and her longing for the days when "between the other boyfriends and husbands, Sister and Marnie were close" is at times heartrending, and Sister's struggle to preserve her love for Marnie despite the growing realization that her self-centered mother doesn't "give a damn" charges this novel with emotional power. (Dec.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Reminiscent of Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina (LJ 3/1/92) this book by the author of Whistle tells the haunting and disturbing story of a 13-year-old girl named Sister whose run-around mother abandons her. Alone and responsible for her younger twin brothers and her baby sister, she eats Zero Bars instead of meat, potatoes, and vegetables--that is, proper food. Like Allison's protagonist, Bone, Sister mesmerizes readers, lifting them out of their comfort zones and forcing them to look at sordid issues like rape and murder. Sister is finally taken into a middle-class family, cleaned up, dressed, and fed, but she remains all too aware of her outsider status. To the reader of both books, it seems that Bone will escape her despair--but not so Sister. A beautiful yet discomforting tale of abject poverty, abuse, neglect, and hopelessness; recommended for all libraries.
-Patricia Gulian, South Portland, ME
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (November 21, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060931795
• ISBN-13: 978-0060931797
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,260,283 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

See www.janicedaugharty.com for sample writings and more on me.

One morning, I expect to wake up to breakfast in bed--served by Amazon/Kindle. They do everything else for authors with more and more happening all the time.

I've been writing for about thirty years but publishing only about twenty years. Slow starter, that's me! Now, in my later years, I find myself having to ostensibly start over: I'm trying to find my way in a virtual publishing world, after so many years of print publishing only. If I thought my little place was isolated before, it's even more isolated now that I'm tied to my computer. I like it though, very much. I especailly like the freedom of quick, uncomplicated publishing through Kindle on Amazon. Compare having to mail copies of manuscripts to an agent, waiting, waiting, waiting for her to get back to me, then waiting again for some editor to accept or reject one of my novels, so on and so forth. You get the picture. Lately I've been clicking on to the digital platform and uploading precious manuscripts--most written during those other long waits--that I thought I'd never see in print.

Thankfully, I now have a print publisher too--Belle Bridge Books--who has done an amazing job with my last two novels. Both best-sellers in the Kindle Store! The titles are "The Little Known" and "Heir To The Everlasting." We're hoping soon to add the prequel to "Heir..." in ebook format. My e-novel,"A Righteous Wind," is briefly posted for free on Kindle, with almost 15,000 downloads in the US alone (for more titles by Janice Daugharty, see my author's page--almost 100 novels, short stories and essays to pick from).

I write a lot; I write too much, maybe. But now I'm glad I've spent all those hours writing. I'm an excellent typist too.

See my old typewriter with a spool ribbon I used to have to manually re-ink at Valdosta State University archives, Odum Library. Love my fans, Janice Daugharty, writer in residence at Abraham Baldwin Agriculture College, in Tifton, Georgia

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A MUST READ, November 11, 1999

By 

David S. Ferriero (Duke University) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Like A Sister: A Novel (Hardcover)

Janice Daugharty has hit new heights with LIKE A SISTER. A coming of age tale of triumph over life's most adverse conditions and circumstances, Daugharty's talents with plot, language, and character sparkle in this important new work. A sometimes sad tale of rural community and individual grit and fortitude, these characters and their lives will stay with you for some time-- the true measure of great writing. Oprah, hope you are reading this one!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Oompf!, February 25, 2000

By 

Laura Levings (Tallahassee, FL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Like A Sister: A Novel (Hardcover)

I opened Janice Daughtary's "Like A Sister" expecting, ok, a good read. However, the viseral one-two emotional punch of the first chapter--only five pages--made me put the book down and reassess the caliber of the story I was reading here. I think it a great read.

Sister's world is ugly. Daughtery uses deadly accurate prose to depict the starkness of Sister's life. Daugharty is also particularly convincing at portraying the confusion and pain of a thirteen-year-old trying to negotiate life with little information and no parental support. But in all the ugliness, there are, for Sister, threads of gold-the physical pleasure of holding her baby sister, Lil; the resigned kindness of the Judge who has the power to take Lil away, and does; the compassion of Willa, her neighbor, who becomes Sister's redeemer. And so Daugharty weaves these threads, makes a net for Sister, and the net is hope. How the heck does Daugharty get THERE? Read "Like A Sister." You'll see.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sister -- term of endearment but also familiarity, January 10, 2000

By 

Cathy Harris Helms - See all my reviews

This review is from: Like A Sister: A Novel (Hardcover)

It seems that everyone in the deep rural South has a female relative known only as "Sister." It is a term of great affection and endearment, but it also connotes familiarity. In Like a Sister, Janice Daugharty has grippingly captured the small town rural life of a 13-year old girl known as Sister. But Sister is not merely a sister, she must also be a surrogate mother to her younger siblings because their mother is too immersed in her own sorry life to care for them. Sister, despite poverty and lack of adult supervision, strives to better herself and to "be good." Sister is endearing and attracts the too-familiar attentions of an opportunistic older man. Her small town world then becomes a minefield with constant dangers to herself, her good-for-nothing mother, her younger twin brothers and baby sister, and eventually even her wonderful neighbor. Ms. Daugharty's characters take shape so clearly that one can easily understand their complexities. Through her strong narrative, you grasp the caring yet smothering sensation of life in a rural South Georgia backwater town. I highly recommend this book, as well as all others by Ms. Daugharty.