BookBrowse Reviews Shred Sisters by Betsy Lerner

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Betsy Lerner's debut novel tells the poignant story of two sisters, one of whom has a mental illness that leads to erratic and self-destructive behavior.

"No one will love you more or hurt you more than a sister" is a wry aphorism that appears late in the novel Shred Sisters. Over the course of about two decades, there is much heartache for the Shred family, but also moments of joy. Ultimately, a sisterly bond endures despite secrets, betrayals, and intermittent estrangement. Through her psychologically astute portrait of Olivia ("Ollie") and Amy Shred, Betsy Lerner captures the lasting effects that mental illness can have on not just an individual, but an entire family.

Although Amy is the younger sister, she feels that she has always had to be the good, responsible one, cleaning up after Ollie's mistakes. She opens her retrospective of their relationship with an incident to illustrate Ollie's recklessness, the unexpected consequences of her actions, and the family's conspiracy of silence. Once when they were kids, Ollie jumped so energetically on the couch that she smashed into a window. Glass and blood went everywhere. Their mother was away on a cruise and, though Amy wanted to call her right away, her father said no. Instead, they worked together to tidy up, get Ollie medical attention, and have the window replaced. They never did tell the girls' mother what happened.

Ollie's behavior becomes ever more extreme. At first, it could pass as mere teenage rebellion — trying pot, shoplifting, going on the Pill, and getting a tattoo — but when she starts disappearing for days at a time, the wildness looks more irrational. Ollie "had no brakes," Amy observes; it was as if she "had two settings: rage and apathy." Her high school warns that she won't graduate with her class and recommends a psychiatric evaluation. At age 18, she is hospitalized in a New York City locked ward for the first time.

Over the years, Ollie cycles through relapse and recovery in a manner consistent with bipolar disorder. She goes AWOL only to resurface needing money and somewhere to live. Her kleptomania persists, even extending to stealing from her own family. Sometimes, they lose track of her completely until a phone call comes from a homeless shelter or jail. After the parents divorce, Ollie briefly lives with their mother and announces her intention to open a bakery. Both parents enthusiastically support the plan, and Ollie accepts $70,000 in startup funds from her father only to promptly run away.

This pattern of eager re-engagement followed by letdown, optimism then heartbreak, continues for much of the book. Throughout, Amy is resentful of how Ollie monopolizes their parents' attention. By turns, Amy tries to be invisible (to high school bullies, for example) and to distinguish herself to earn people's approval, such as through her postgraduate research on the "freeze" option of the fight/flight response in mice. Her relationship with an addict, her first boyfriend Josh, also emerges as a canny parallel to the challenge of loving someone with a mental illness.

Sibling jealousy is a primal story — while reading this, I was often reminded of the Prodigal Son parable in the Bible. Everyone will be able to recognize themselves, or someone they know, in Ollie and/or Amy. Although the details of what happens to the Shred family may be foreign to readers, competition and disappointment are universal experiences.

The specificity of the chain of family events, and the fact that the book takes place in the 1970s through early 1990s, perhaps signals autofiction — with Lerner, a first-time novelist in her mid-sixties, closer to Ollie than Amy (for instance, the blog on her website describes having manic episodes). At certain points in the midsection, the plot feels like a flat recounting of a series of depressing events. Amy becomes an editor for a publishing company and has a failed "starter marriage"; both her parents grow old and ill. There are deaths and setbacks and, always, Ollie's problems: "She had left a trail of hurt, all in service of her restless, fevered, formidable mind," Amy says. There is inherent repetition to descriptions of mental illness and addiction; Amy, too, sometimes seems trapped in bitterness and self-sabotage.

Nonetheless, Lerner has achieved a vivid and emotionally involving family tale peopled by convincing characters. Psychotherapy is a constant here: family sessions and private appointments for Amy during five particularly tumultuous years of adulthood. She also successfully recommends that a friend see a counselor. Lerner clearly has experience with and faith in therapy and, as dark as her story gets in places, she offers hope that medication and psychological interventions can help people to learn and to heal. The book ends with an incidental line that beautifully embodies this hope: "I left the door open."

This review first ran in the October 2, 2024 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.