While Ortlip’s love for her sisters is intensely moving and well-depicted, the story of their sisterly bonds is almost...
A memoir of the bonds of sisterhood, as recalled by the eldest of five sisters.
Ortlip grew up in northern New Jersey in the 1950s, daughter of an artistic, ineffectual father and a mother whose depression made her nonfunctional. As her four younger siblings arrived, she gradually relinquished the role of older sister for that of protective parent—especially when their mother was taken to a psychiatric hospital and, later, when she left the children’s father for another man. After this abandonment, the girls attempted to console themselves by reveling in the surrounding landscape, which featured granite cliffs overlooking the Hudson River, blooming magnolias, and sturdy oak trees. Unfortunately, they were soon forced to move from their home when the property was rezoned for high-rise apartments. From this point on, the narrative becomes relentlessly grim. Forced to visit their mother and her new husband, a prescription-drug addict, the girls must give their stepfather endless massages while he sucks on a grimy childhood pillow. In 1976, one of the middle sisters, Shari, is killed in an automobile accident, sending the author into a downward spiral of depression, drugs, and alcohol abuse. We follow her to Crete, where she labors in a cucumber factory, and to Alaska, where, between swigs of alcohol, she works on the crew of a 90-foot king-crab fishing boat. After several years of oblivion and meaningless toil, Ortlip finds happiness as an elementary-school teacher. But tragedy strikes once more when another sister, Danielle, dies from acute leukemia. This time, however, the author doesn’t avoid her grief but faces it head-on.
While Ortlip’s love for her sisters is intensely moving and well-depicted, the story of their sisterly bonds is almost completely eclipsed by the disturbing revelations about her parents and the bleakness of her life.Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-345-44342-X
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2002
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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