SISTERS AND STRANGERS

by Helen Van Slyke ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 18, 1978

Happy 50th Anniversary, Sam and Laura Dalton of Denver--just wait and see what miseries Helen Van Slyke has in store for you when your three middle-aged daughters, each a spectacular case of arrested development, come home for the big celebration. Fiftyish Fran, that cynical continental sophisticate and veteran of three marriages, is up to her old tricks: picking up a bartender for a one-night stand, then recapturing her high school boyfriend (causing his flaky wife to kill herself). Poor passive Allie, who long ago gave up her out-of-wedlock child and married a hideous wife-beater and snob from Boston, has a reunion with her childhood Romeo (they finally meet their beloved illegitimate, who coincidentally has been looking for them) and decides to start a new life--only to be raped and killed. And easygoing, fortyish Barbara, longtime mistress of a married congressman, is traumatically, selflessly trying to end the affair; it's standing in the way of his career. Add in Allie's homosexual son, papa Sam's bad heart and puritanical attitudes, not to mention a whole mess of sibling bitchery--and the Daltons are in for page upon page of guilt, anger, aching hearts, wringing hands, and abysmal writing. ""But it was for Frances that the director of our destinies reserved the moments of terrible tension which ultimately would propel her down a predetermined path of reckless destruction."" The usual teabag Tempest. . . As You Slyke It?

Pub Date: Aug. 18, 1978

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1978

Categories: FICTION