Grove Press
Grove Press
Grove Press
No one will love you more or hurt you more than a sister.
“I love this book. It moves like a souped-up pickup truck.”—Patti Smith, author of Just Kids
From Betsy Lerner, celebrated author of The Bridge Ladies, comes a wry and riveting debut novel about family, mental illness, and a hard-won path between two sisters
It is said that when one person in a family is unstable, the whole family is destabilized. Meet the Shreds. Olivia is the sister in the spotlight until her stunning confidence becomes erratic and unpredictable, a hurricane leaving people wrecked in her wake. Younger sister Amy, cautious and studious to the core, believes in facts, proof, and the empirical world. None of that explains what’s happening to Ollie, whose physical beauty and charisma mask the mental illness that will shatter Amy’s carefully constructed life.
As Amy comes of age and seeks to find her place—first in academics, then New York publishing, and through a series of troubled relationships—every step brings collisions with Ollie, who slips in and out of the Shred family without warning. Yet for all that threatens their sibling bond, Amy and Ollie cannot escape or deny the inextricable sister knot that binds them.
Spanning two decades, Shred Sisters is an intimate and bittersweet story exploring the fierce complexities of sisterhood, mental health, loss and love. If anything is true it’s what Amy learns on her road to self-acceptance: No one will love you more or hurt you more than a sister.
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
Longlisted for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and Best Book of the Year So Far
A Good Housekeeping Book Club Pick
A Best Book of Fall from Bustle
A Most Anticipated Book from Literary Hub and Kirkus Reviews
“Shred Sisters is the kind of novel readers won’t want to end . . . I’m betting the farm it will scoop most lively minds straight into the ‘adore’ basket . . . Its bright, clean, gallivanting story rewards an open mind and heart with crisp prose, fresh plot turns and dimensional, dishy portraits we can instantly recognize . . . Lerner’s ace? Many readers will have known or met a version of each sister . . . We may suppose we can predict this inflamed relationship’s trajectory. Yet somehow (a crowning tribute to Lerner), it manages to surprise us. What comes at us, page after page, is new news, for which—laughter and pain alike—we’re ultimately grateful. The ride feels real.” —Joan Frank, Washington Post
“Told from Amy’s wise, wisecracking and tremblingly self-conscious perspective, Shred Sisters is a bildungsroman overcast with the thick and inconstant cloud of mental illness . . . Lots of ambitious books announce themselves; this one doesn’t need to. The first novel by Betsy Lerner —a veteran literary agent and editor who has written three previous books of nonfiction—it forgoes all fanfare and conceit as it refines a 20-year coming-of-age into an elegant thread of taut, perfectly paced milestones. The prose is controlled, but neither virtuosic nor spare; the plot, enticing but neither Dickensian nor minimalist. Decidedly un-trendy, crescendo-less and restrained, this tragicomic family saga is a Bach prelude to the Rachmaninoff of a writer like Jonathan Franzen.” —Lauren Christensen, New York Times Book Review
“Modest moments become revelatory in the wry and incisive Shred Sisters . . . Change, as we know, is hard; but, there’s a moment where the adult Amy, who’s been demoralized by loneliness and career failure, spontaneously walks into a hair salon. She’s pulled in by a sign that reads: ‘Never give up on your hair.’ These are the kind of revelatory ordinary human moments Lerner captures with precision. As an affirmation, ‘Never give up on your hair’ turns out to be a more modest way to declare, ‘I will survive.’”—Maureen Corrigan, NPR
“In the veteran author and editor’s first novel, Lerner enchants . . . It’s exquisitely written, featuring pitch-perfect wit, crackling dialogue, and deep insight into the excruciating pain of being in a perpetual awkward phase, as Amy mostly is. It’s as if Lerner is Amy—that’s how intimate and emotionally fine-tuned the novel is . . . Drama, disappointment, and despair thread throughout this bittersweet saga, but empathy, humor, and the narrator’s sharp yet loving powers of observation make it a joy to read . . . In Amy and Ollie, Lerner has given us a love story for the ages.” —Leigh Haber, Boston Globe
“Beautiful daredevil Olivia is the star of the family, but as she goes off the rails, her parents and younger sister Amy struggle for balance. As told by Amy—the smart, quiet one—over two decades, this heartfelt novel reveals the power of the sibling bond to shape our lives.”—People, “Best New Books”
“Lerner, a great literary agent and nonfiction author (The Forest for the Trees), debuts as a novelist with a story of sisters whose relationship is tested by the older one’s mental illness. Ollie and Amy grow up in Connecticut, in a stable suburban home, but Ollie’s unpredictable and dangerous exploits affect everyone—especially quiet, high-achieving Amy, who holds the family’s vulnerable, beating heart in her all-too-capable hands.”—Bethanne Patrick, Los Angeles Times
“Lerner’s sharp storytelling places her in the canon of Nora Ephron and Judy Blume. Shred Sisters is an honest, intimate, and heartfelt meditation on the ways our toughest loves shape, break, and rebuild us.” —Sara Lippmann, Jewish Book Council
“A coming-of-age overcast with the inconstant cloud of mental illness, Lerner’s first novel follows Amy Shred, an aspiring biologist turned book editor in 1970s suburban Connecticut whose older sister, Ollie, is beautiful, effortlessly cool and deeply unstable. As Ollie weaves in and out of psychiatric hospitals, Amy — by turns exasperated, awed and destroyed by her sister — probes what exactly it means for love to be unconditional.”—New York Times, “21 New Books Coming in October”
“The engaging, thoughtful voice established here goes on to unfold the story of Amy’s childhood, coming of age, and early adulthood, all profoundly shaped by the wild trajectory of her older sister: a rebel, a runaway, a mental patient, a dropout, a thief, a missing person . . . The story unfolds with the verisimilitude of a memoir: Amy’s nuanced relationships with her mother, her father, and her partners are all utterly convincing and relatable . . . [Shred Sisters presents] a seamlessly constructed and absorbing fictional world, full of insight about how families work.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“The perfectly named Shred sisters’ ups and downs are wrenching and felicitous, while Amy is a triumph of clashing emotions, self-sabotage and self-preservation, anguish, loyalty, and love. Aerodynamic prose, psychological acuity, tangy wit, knotty family dynamics, and heady twists and turns make for an exhilarating read.” —Donna Seaman, Booklist
“In Lerner’s debut novel, the memoirist and literary agent wrestles with mental health and family dysfunction, told from the perspective of Amy, the younger of two sisters growing up in 1970s Connecticut. Over two decades, Amy tries to cope with the impact of her charming yet erratic older sister, Olivia, and the chaos she brings.” — Stephanie Topacio Long, Bustle “Best New Books of Fall”
“As with so many sisters, there’s a pretty one and a smart one: Olivia and Amy, four years apart. But beneath Olivia’s beauty lies a wild hellion of a girl, far beyond her parents’ and teachers’ control. Her lonely, brainiac, rule-abiding little sister watches in horror as Ollie’s bipolar disorder puts the family in an emotional Cuisinart that never stops. This absorbing novel follows the sisters into adulthood with insight, humor, rue and love.” —Good Housekeeping, October Book Club Pick
“Lerner’s skilled approach to narrative lies in subtly depicting the destigmatizing of mental illness and the evolution of treatment during the period from the sisters’ childhood in the 1970s through the 1990s . . . A quietly lovely and ultimately hopeful chronicle of a complicated family.” —Publishers Weekly
“Betsy Lerner’s light prose, with her searing descriptive narrative power, will propel the reader through these stories with the kind of empathy and love that we usually save for people in our real life. Amy and Ollie will feel like close relatives by the time you reach the end. Shred Sisters is a lovingly rendered work about family and how it shapes, batters and ultimately saves you.”—Jana Saciliano, Bookreporter
“Reading this story about sisterhood and mental health was a revelatory experience. It unlocked a lot about how I thought about my relationship with family members both close and distant. Lerner’s decades of working in the publishing industry – including memoirs and a writing advice book – paid off. This debut was worth the wait.” —Adam Vitcavage, Debutiful
“I love this book. It moves like a souped-up pickup truck.”—Patti Smith, author of Just Kids and A Book of Days
“Shred Sisters is a brilliantly written, emotionally gripping saga that delves into the complexity of sisterhood, mental health, and resilience. Spanning decades, this utterly engrossing novel asks readers many profound and pressing questions: Can we fully know the ones we love? Does love always require self-sacrifice? Can we understand ourselves without understanding our family? One of the best books I’ve read in years.”—Chloé Cooper Jones, two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and author of Easy Beauty
“Wise to the woe and wonder of families and the bedeviling forces that shape them, Betsy Lerner’s masterful new novel, Shred Sisters, delivers you through grief and devastation toward tremulous, exquisite hope.”—Bill Clegg, author of Did You Ever Have a Family
“Betsy Lerner’s Shred Sisters is a cocktail of raw poetry, needle sharp insights, and propulsive, almost projectile honesty. I can’t get over how deftly it pivots from funny to mean to vulnerable to wise, often on a single page. Lerner explores the contours of complicated relationships with an intoxicating ferocity that—we come to realize—amounts to no less than an act of love.”—Leah Hager Cohen, author of Strangers and Cousins and To & Fro
“The Shreds are in devastating and hilarious pain. Betsy Lerner has turned her memoirist’s eye on a fictional family with candid and surprising results.”—Jill Eisenstadt, author of From Rockaway and Swell
“I loved this poignant story of a younger sister growing and forming herself around her older sister’s erratic behavior. Betsy Lerner articulates moments I have observed but never put into words, and I both laughed out loud and was deeply moved. A brilliant novel.”—Alice Elliott Dark, author of Fellowship Point
“Betsy Lerner has created a richly layered family novel that manages to be raucously funny, insightful, and tender—often on the same page. I’m not sure how she did it, but I gleefully went along for the ride and was bereft when it was over. I will be thinking about the Shred Sisters for a long time.”—Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, author of Good Company
“Deliciously compelling, as poignant as it is funny, and sneakily profound about the myriad ways family shapes and undoes us, Shred Sisters will take over your mind and heart (and life!) until the very last page.”—Edan Lepucki, author of California and Time’s Mouth
Written by Gwyneth Henke for Shred Sisters.
1. Shred Sisters opens with three options for how Amy might begin her narrative: “Here are the ways I could start this story: Olivia was breathtaking. For a long time, I was convinced that she was responsible for everything that went wrong. No one will love you more or hurt you more than a sister.” How do you see those three different versions playing out in the novel? Did one interest you more than others? Why?
2. Ollie struggles to feel remorse for her actions, whereas Amy feels a tremendous amount of responsibility for both her own and Ollie’s. Is Amy’s sense of responsibility for the world around her disproportionate? How do you see that responsibility changing over time, especially as her relationship with Ollie evolves?
3. As the novel progresses, Amy recognizes herself in her mother’s solitude and sense of abandonment. She sees a parallel connection between Ollie and her father; at one point, she describes them as “both playing a part: a father-daughter duo on the lam, conning judges, law enforcement, psychiatrists, themselves” (93-94). Do you agree with this pairing between Amy and her mother and Ollie and her father? Why or why not?
4. When Ollie is at The Place, Amy writes her a note, “Come home,” that she crosses out and revises: “This sucks” (56). Ollie calls Amy crying and says that she’s the only one being honest about the situation. What is everyone else’s narrative of Ollie’s time in The Place? What is the role of denial in the Shred Family and society at large when it comes to mental health?
5. Part II—in which Amy meets Josh, marries Marc, gets a successful career in publishing, and befriends Courtney—is called “The Almost Time,” referring to Amy’s mother’s favorite time of day (79). Revisit the passage in which Amy describes the almost time. Does the idea of the almost time resonate with you? Why or why not?
6. In what ways does Josh resemble Ollie? What do you think draws Amy to him? What does he give her, and why does she keep showing up for him?
7. Ollie’s main criticism of Amy is her predictability, but as the book progresses, Amy does increasingly unpredictable things, especially in her relationship with men (the kiss with Josh on the eve of her wedding, her affair with TJ). Did you agree with Ollie’s diagnosis of Amy as predictable? How did you interpret Amy’s moments of unpredictability? What do you think drives them?
8. Some of the starkest moments of Ollie’s mistreatment of Amy are only referenced briefly and very late on in the novel—for instance, when Ollie lashes out after Amy suggests medication, the language shifts to memories: “Ollie straddling me, threatening to punch me in the face, pouring broth in my bed” (193). Why do you think Amy withholds these violent details in an otherwise meticulous account of Ollie’s life? How did these revelations change your feelings towards both Ollie and Amy?
9. TJ, the psychologist who Amy catapults into literary fame, studies the empathy response. Consider empathy as a larger theme in the novel. Where do you see it showing up? What do you think Lerner is trying to say about empathy?
10. When Courtney and Amy’s friendship falls apart, Amy writes, “On some level, I had always been poised for this moment; Ollie was my first and best teacher in the art of betrayal” (196). How does this anticipation of betrayal affect Amy’s relationships throughout the novel?
11. Before turning to publishing, Amy studied the “fight, flight, or freeze” phenomenon in mice. Where do you see Amy “freezing” in response to trauma or threats, either emotional or physical?
12. Amy repeatedly tries to force her parents to hold Ollie accountable for her actions, but she also begs Hunt to forgive Ollie for similar transgressions. As you read, did you struggle with how to feel about Ollie? Did you ever want Amy to be more forgiving of her—or less?
13. During her senior year of high school, Ollie has “Live free or die” tattooed on her arm (28). This idea resurfaces while Ollie is giving birth (243). What is Ollie’s idea of freedom, and how does Amy view that outlook?
14. When Amy marries Marc, she says, “I wanted to believe that I had been rewarded for being good. That my stupid solitary life had been a mistake, that my real life was starting now” (172). In the novel, do you think people are rewarded for being good? Why do you think Amy wants that to be the case? By the end of the book, does she still believe that?
15. At the end of the novel, on Kira’s wedding day, she tells Amy that her therapist’s advice was to forgive herself (263). What does Amy need to forgive herself for? What is preventing her from doing so?
16. Amy and Ollie’s last name, Shred, feels increasingly symbolic as the novel develops. How do you feel the last name speaks to the themes of the book? At the end of the novel, how would you describe the state of Ollie and Amy’s relationship? What do you think will happen between them next?
17. Consider the depiction of mental illness in the book and the big questions raised over the course of the novel: how do you care for a family member who does not want treatment or denies any illness? Are we our sister’s keeper? How would you say Shred Sisters answers these questions?
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