WE BECAME LIKE A HAND

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.