Daughters of Memory

by Janis Arnold

Overview

Claire Louise and Macy Rose Richards are sisters and best enemies—fierce adversaries in a lifelong rivalry by turns bitter and hilarious. But their rivalry hides a terrible secret buried somewhere in the past. As each sister tells her story in DAUGHTERS OF MEMORY, pieces of the puzzle begin falling into place and a shocking and tragically familiar picture begins to emerge. A LITERARY GUILD SELECTION.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781565120310
Publisher:	Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Publication date:	01/04/1993
Series:	Front Porch Paperback Ser.
Pages:	378
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 6.94(h) x 0.99(d)

About the Author

Janis Arnold, a native Texan, has also lived in Florida and North Carolina. She currently lives with her husband and son in San Antonio, where she teaches school. She earned a B.A. from the University of Central Florida and an M.A. from the University of Houston. Her first novel, Daughters of Memory, was published by Algonquin in 1991 and reissued as a Front Porch paperback in 1993.

Editorial Reviews

Two sisters battle over how to make sense of their troubled childhood in this promising but flawed first novel. From the vantage point of adulthood, Claire Louise and Macy Rose take turns narrating their family history. Like all families, the Richards of Molly's Point, Tex., have their sorrows--the mother is hospitalized after a mental collapse, Macy Rose rushes next door to her grandmother's house every time the yelling starts, a teenage Claire runs away for 10 years. But the causes of their troubles prove difficult to confront. Claire, who remembers parental abuse, exacts her revenge by manipulating those around her, while Macy represses most of her memories and tries to lead an ordinary life in Houston with her husband and sons. When her grandmother's condition worsens, however, Macy begins to act in ways she can neither control nor understand, and is forced to address the truth about her family. While its message is powerful and disturbing, the novel is weakened by its unconvincing first-person narrations. Claire seems two-dimensional--either evil or self-deluded--and Macy's psychological breakthrough, as conveyed in her own words, is entirely too facile. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Arnold's story is told by two sisters who describe events in alternating chapters. When the novel begins, Claire, age 17, has just run away from her rural Texas home. During the decade she is gone, her sister Macy remains at the family farm. Then Claire returns, determined to control the lives of everyone in her family. As they grow older, marry, and have families of their own, Claire and Macy struggle to overcome the abusive events of their childhood; Claire is manipulative and grasping; Macy is hostile and fearful. The tension between them is resolved only after the deaths of their father, mother, and grandmother. A good choice for public libraries.-- Joanna M. Burkhardt, Univ. of Connecticut at Torrington Lib.

Library Journal