Sister - (Mysteries & Horror) by A Manette Ansay (Paperback)

About the Book

In her remarkable second novel, the author of Vinegar Hill tells the story of Abigail Schiller, a girl raised in a rural Catholic community in Wisconsin. Abby's younger brother, unable to survive his father's abuse, succumbs to drugs and violence and leaves town. Haunted by memories of him and unable to find her place in the church or within her family, Abby soon flees, too, with hopes of solving the mystery of her brother's disappearance.

From the Back Cover

"When my brother disappeared in 1984, I began to see myself in the third person as if my life were a story being told to someone else."

Abigail Schiller lives a seemingly normal childhood in a rural Catholic commuinity in Wisconsin. But that life is shattered when her younger brother, Sam, vanishes at the age of seventeen, fleeing their father's rigid rules of masculinity and the violence their mother denies. Finally, thirty years old and expecting a child of her own, Abby is determined to retrace her lost sibling's dark descent--embarking upon an emotional journey that will test the strength of her spirit, and contradict everything, she once believed about her family and herself.

A stunning work of rare poignance and unsettling power, A. Manette Ansay's Sister marks the literary maturation of a truly exceptional voice in contemporary American fiction. Deftly spinning triumph out of tragedy, the award-winning author of Vinegar Hill offers us a fresh understanding, of family, memory, faith.Abigail Schiller lives in a seemingly normal childhood in a rural Catholic community in Wisconsin. But that life is shattered when her younger brother, Sam, vanishes at the age of seventeen, fleeing their father's rigid rules of masculinity and the violence their mother denies. Finally, thirty years old and expecting a child of her own, Abby is determined to retrace her lost sibling's dark descent--embarking upon an emotional journey that will test the strength of her spirit, and contradict everything she once believed her family and herself.

A stunning work of race poignance and unsettling power, A. Manette Ansay's Sister marks the literary maturation of a truly exceptional voice in contemporary American fiction. Deftly spinning triumph out of tragedy, the award-winning author of Vinegar Hill Offers us a fresh understanding of family, memory, and faith.

Review Quotes

A soul aches here, and the future seems forlorn . . . Sister rises above that with its frankness and acuity, and the rhythmic beauty of its prose - New York Times Book Review

"Ansay's dramatic rendering of people and events...lends a powerful edginess to her prose...SISTER carves out new, interesting terrain in a genre one might dub 'Midwestern Gothic'." - Boston Globe

"Ansay writes with such skill that you don't so much read as absorb this truly moving story of a girl's growing up in a deeply troubled Midwestern family." - New York Daily News

"Intense and deeply affecting...this heartbreaking novel resonates with wisdom about life's hard truths." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)