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Sisters Mass Market Paperback – December 1, 1981
The novel of a strong and beautiful woman who broke all the rules of the American frontier...
Sophie Dymond had overcome nineteenth-century prejudices to succeed as publisher of a hugely popular women's magazine. But when she left New York to revisit her native Wyoming, where her sister had died mysteriously, she left her prestige and power far behind. Waiting for Sophie was a world where women were treated either as decorative figurines or as abject sexual vassals...where wives were led to despise the marriage act and prostitutes pandered to husbands' hungers...where the relationship between women and men became a kind of guerilla warfare in which women were forced to band together for the strength they needed and at times for the love they wanted. In her effort to grasp the meaning of her sister's life and death, Sophie discovers the secret that tainted her life and begins to understand the experience of the vast majority of silent, trapped women.
Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice President Dick Cheney, has spent much of her professional life writing and speaking about the importance of history. Mrs. Cheney earned her B.A. from Colorado College, her Master of Arts from the University of Colorado, and her Ph.D. with a specialization in 19th century British literature from the University of Wisconsin. She is the recipient of awards and honorary degrees from numerous colleges and universities. Vice President and Mrs. Cheney were married in 1964. They have two grown daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, and three granddaughters.
- Print length215 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherSignet
- Publication dateDecember 1, 1981
- Dimensions7 x 1 x 5 inches
- ISBN-100451112040
- ISBN-13978-0451112040
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- Publisher : Signet (December 1, 1981)
- Language : English
- Mass Market Paperback : 215 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0451112040
- ISBN-13 : 978-0451112040
- Item Weight : 8 ounces
- Dimensions : 7 x 1 x 5 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #3,243,008 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,257,316 in Literature & Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Lynne Cheney's most recent book is the New York Times bestseller, We the People: The Story of Our Constitution, illustrated by Greg Harlin. She is also the author of the New York Times bestsellers America: A Patriotic Primer, A is for Abigail: An Almanac of Amazing American Women, When Washington Crossed the Delaware: A Wintertime Story for Young Patriots, A Time for Freedom: What Happened When in America, and Our 50 States: A Family Adventure Across America, and has written a memoir, Blue Skies, No Fences. Mrs. Cheney is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and former chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband, Vice President Richard B. Cheney.
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There have been claims that the characters are two-dimensional. This is true. All the men are either evil in some way or another (rapists usually) or totally oblivious (all the Cattle Russlers allowing their wives to go on to those women's lib meetings). Also, it's not a book easy to empathise with. I found myself more than easily putting it down, especially in parts being overly descriptive.
It's true that the author does touch over a lot of the 'ugly' underbelly of the West- murder, rape, extramarital affairs and loveless marriages, lynching.
However, Sophie Dymond herself seems to be have created to embody all that is 'women's liberation'. For example, Sophie doesn't bat an eyelid when she finds out the secret lives of her sister...but is appalled to find out about what her husband, James, did to her.
Tracey Chevalier's Girl With a Pearl Earring suffers a similar problem to this text- the author has cast in a (or several) female characters with 20th Century Women's view on the role and "worth" of women.
Which could quite easily make one think that the volume taboo material included was deliberate, turning it more into a soap-opera than any accurate account of history.
The climax of the book was very unrealistic- Sophie turns from a journalist into a female Indiana Jones. Then, the ending was a huge let-down: the Wests' greatest feminist forgets the last two thirds of the book and goes back to her original plan, despite knowing what she did about those involved in the ending. It felt by then that like the author had given up on writing the book.
As a comment on the author, people change, political ideologies shift. Lynne wrote this when she was a lot younger and was probably "testing the waters" a little, as she did with her earlier book "Executive Privilege". I would dispute her claims she didn't write this, as there are rumours that the US government had a lot to do with tracking down copies in second hand bookstores to make sure the public didn't get them. Also, how could someone with the same name as the author prohibit the publication (republication) of a book that she claims she knew nothing about? It's not the first book she knows nothing about, "Executive Privilege" is about a President who seeks psychiatric counselling and whose subject matter isn't entirely along a separate vein.
A book that covers a lot of ground in a short space of time. Definetly worth a look.
Heavens! For many of us, what Mrs. Cheney considers sub-par work comprises ripping-good entertainment. And how are we to decide whether "Sisters" is her "best work" if virtually no copies exist--and those that do exist cost hundreds of dollars? Her attorney felt that if a need existed for "Sisters," that the nation's rare-book dealers would satisfy that need.
Well, only if the reader has a great deal of money, as well as the persistence to seek out the few copies on the free market.
To rephrase a current-day expression, some sisters are not only doing it for themselves, they are doing for others. Mrs. Biscuitbarrel owns one of the yellowing vintage copies of "Sisters," and so she lovingly hand-typed all twenty-three action-packed chapters into blog format, available free of charge at [...] Read the book, and then come back here and post a review!
Incest, cattle rustling, lynching, the chaste female-female love that dares not speak its name, dognapping, running away from a convent school to join the circus, the New York-Washington publishing scene, women's suffrage, a runaway mother, the mysterious death of a sister, circus freak shows, troubled nieces, a hunky widowed Scottish brother-in-law (rrrrufffff!), contraception, the Women's Christian Temperance Union, and the frequent introduction of gophers--either merely dead, or dead and putrefying--spice the never-a-dull-moment plot of "Sisters."
My only caveat goes out to prurient thrill-seekers: The word "lesbian" does not appear anywhere in this novel.
Asked about her "novel" years after writing it, she lied and said she "didn't remember" writing it LOL






