Esther Freud On Her Favourite Books About Sisters
By Bloomsbury Publishing
Esther Freud On Her Favourite Books About Sisters
By Bloomsbury Publishing
I grew up with an abundance of sisters. To begin with I was the youngest of two, then my mother joined families with another single parent and I became the middle girl of five. Not long after on a visit to my father in London I discovered half-sisters – at the first count five. No wonder so many of my novels have taken sisters as a theme, that so many of my favourite books feature the complexity of their relationships.
Little House on the Prairie
Laura Ingalls Wilder
£4.99 £4.74This novel, about a family living a self sufficient life in the American Midwest, was read to me as a child. I loved the idea that the author, Laura, was the same Laura we were meeting as a ‘half pint’ - tapping maple trees for syrup, listening for the howls of wolves - and I was intrigued to think she was seeing her life in terms of a story, just as I was seeing mine. I can still remember sitting wedged in beside my sister, my heart thumping when Laura’s own sister falls ill with Scarlet Fever.
Gone with the Wind
Margaret Mitchell
£10.99 £10.44I was a late reader and by the time I did learn, (aged ten) I was hungry for any available book. That’s how I found myself holed up in my room, so caught by the sweeping saga of Scarlett O’Hara that when – selfish and headstrong – Scarlett sets her sights on her quieter, plainer sister’s fiancé and takes him for herself, I threw the book across the room. Within minutes, unable to resist the story, I was forced to crawl across the rug to retrieve it. And then there is Scarlett’s relationship with her sister-in-law, Melanie, the ferocity of one pitted against the gentleness of the other, and the unexpected friendship that developes when life becomes impossibly hard.
Little Women: V&A Collector's Edition
Louisa May Alcott
£9.99 £9.49I read this while living as one of five daughters and loved the depiction of the March sisters and their different, often clashing, personalities. Who was I in relation to Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy? Which most reflected my siblings? Much as I adored it, I took against Good Wives with a violence that it has made me wary of sequels to this day.
Pride and Prejudice: (Vintage Classics Austen Series)
Jane Austen
£8.99 £8.54This is my favourite Austen novel. The story of the five Bennet sisters whose future security is dependent on making a good marriage. With ingenuity and humour Austen highlights the cruelty of the inheritance laws that existed at the start of the 19th century, ensuring all property passed to the closest male relative. Although Mrs Bennet is often portrayed as a hysteric, her fear for her girls is valid. They will become homeless – as will she -the moment their father dies. I love the different ways each of the girls responds to their impending fate, their alliances and divisions, the individual relationships they have with their parents, and of course, at the heart of the book, the irresistible drama of spirited Elizabeth Bennet and taciturn Mr Darcy, and the pride and the prejudice they must overcome in order to find love.
Cassandra at the Wedding
Dorothy Baker
£9.99 £9.49This is a brilliantly dark and funny description of the bond, and the efforts to break it, of one half of a pair of twins. Cassandra has heard the shocking news that her twin sister Judith is planning to marry. She races home to their father’s ranch to do everything in her power to stop the wedding. Cassandra is a fantastically divisive and unreliable narrator, posing the question: Do we need to be on the side of our main character? But whichever way we lean, we can appreciate Cassandra’s devotion to the idea that no sister could be happier with anyone but her twin.
Sorrow and Bliss: The funny, heart-breaking, bestselling novel that became a phenomenon
Meg Mason
£9.99 £9.49The sister relationship in this novel is not just witty and full of affection but it provides the thread between tormented, childless Martha and practical, mother of four Ingrid. When Ingrid’s despair threatens to derail her life we can rely on her sister to always be there, until one day even she has had enough. Their bond, and the addictive quality of the prose, is one of the many highlights of this moving and deeply funny book.
My Sister, the Serial Killer: The Sunday Times Bestseller
Oyinkan Braithwaite
£9.99 £9.49This inspired and funny thriller set in Lagos is really a story about what one sister is prepared to do for another. Almost anything - it seems - until the younger’s sociopathic tendencies threaten the elder’s romantic hopes and she is forced to make a choice. Lagos is vividly brought to life as is the relationship between two very different women.
Blue Sisters
Coco Mellors
£9.99 £9.49The four Blue sisters couldn’t be less alike. The adult children of a dissociated mother and an erratic, alcoholic father, they have clung together, supporting each other above everything, keeping each other safe – until the news of their middle sister’s death rips apart the fabric of their lives. One year on, and their carefully constructed coping methods are disintegrating. This is a book about pain, addiction, loyalty and love, and having the courage to fight for the life that suits you. Mellors defines each of her four characters masterfully, drawing us into the sisterly hierarchy of their world and the struggles they must undergo to set themselves free.