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Overview
When Rose, the bookish sister, sets out to write her autobiography, it inevitably becomes the story of her short but extraordinary life with Ruby, the beautiful one. From their awkward first steps — Ruby's arm curled around Rose's neck, her foreshortened legs wrapped around Rose's hips — to the friendships they gradually build for themselves in the small town of Leaford, this is the profoundly affecting chronicle of an incomparable life journey.
As Rose and Ruby's story builds to an unforgettable conclusion, Lansens aims at the heart of human experience — the hardship of loss and struggles for independence, and the fundamental joy of simply living a life. This is a breathtaking novel, one that no reader will soon forget, a heartrending story of love between sisters.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780316066341 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Little, Brown and Company |
| Publication date: | 04/10/2007 |
| Edition description: | Reprint |
| Pages: | 368 |
| Sales rank: | 882,140 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.00(d) |
| Lexile: | 1000L (what's this?) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
The Girls
By Lori Lansens
Random House
Lori LansensAll right reserved.
ISBN: 0676977952
Chapter One
ruby & me
~
I have never looked into my sister's eyes. I have never bathed alone. I have never stood in the grass at night and raised my arms to a beguiling moon. I've never used an airplane bathroom. Or worn a hat. Or been kissed like that. I've never driven a car. Or slept through the night. Never a private talk. Or solo walk. I've never climbed a tree. Or faded into a crowd. So many things I've never done, but oh, how I've been loved. And, if such things were to be, I'd live a thousand lives as me, to be loved so exponentially.
My sister, Ruby, and I, by mishap or miracle, having intended to divide from a single fertilized egg, remained joined instead, by a spot the size of a bread plate on the sides of our twin heads. We're known to the world medical community as the oldest surviving craniopagus twins (we are twenty-nine years old) and to millions around the globe, those whose interest in people like us is more than just passing, as conjoined craniopagus twins Rose and Ruby Darlen of Baldoon County. We've been called many things: freaks, horrors, monsters, devils, witches, retards, wonders, marvels. To most, we're a curiosity. In small-town Leaford, where we live and work, we're just "The Girls."
Raise your right hand. Press the base of your palm to the lobe of your right ear. Cover your ear and fan out your fingers - that's where my sister and I are affixed, our faces not quite side by side, our skulls fused together in a circular pattern running up the temple and curving around the frontal lobe. If you glance at us, you might think we're two women embracing, leaning against the other tete-a-tete, the way sisters do.
Ruby and I are identical twins and would be identical looking, having high foreheads like our mother and wide, full mouths, except that Ruby's face is arranged quite nicely (in fact, Ruby is very beautiful), whereas my features are misshapen and frankly grotesque. My right eye slants steeply towards the place my right ear would have been if my sister's head had not grown there instead. My nose is longer than Ruby's, one nostril wider than the other, pulled to the right of my brown slanted eye. My lower jaw shifts to the left, slurring my speech and giving a husky quality to my voice. Patches of eczema rouge my cheeks, while Ruby's complexion is fair and flawless. Our scalps marry in the middle of our conjoined heads, but my frizzy hair has a glint of auburn, while my sister is a swingy brunette. Ruby has a deep cleft in her chin, which people find endearing.
I'm five feet five inches tall. When we were born, my limbs were symmetrical, in proportion to my body. Presently, my right leg is a full three inches shorter than my left, my spine compressed, my right hip cocked, and all because I have carried my sister like an infant, since I was a baby myself, Ruby's tiny thighs astride my hip, my arm supporting her posterior, her arm forever around my neck. Ruby is my sister. And strangely, undeniably, my child.
There is some discomfort in our conjoinment. Ruby and I experience mild to severe neck, jaw, and shoulder pain, for which we take physiotherapy three times a week. The strain on my body is constant, as I bear Ruby's weight, as I tote Ruby on my hip, as I struggle to turn Ruby over in our bed or perch on my stool beside the toilet for what seems like hours. (Ruby has a multitude of bowel and urinary tract problems.) We are challenged, certainly, and uncomfortable, sometimes, but neither Ruby nor I would describe our conjoinment as painful.
It's difficult to explain our locomotion as conjoined twins or how it developed from birth using grunts and gestures and what I suppose must be telepathy. There are days when, like a normal person, we're clumsy and uncoordinated. We have less natural symbiosis when one of us (usually Ruby) is sick, but mostly our dance is a smooth one. We hate doing things in unison, such as answering yes or no at the same time. We never finish each other's sentences. We can't shake our heads at once or nod (and wouldn't if we could - see above). We have an unspoken, even unconscious, system of checks and balances to determine who'll lead the way at any given moment. There is conflict. There is compromise.
Ruby and I share a common blood supply. My blood flows normally in the left side of my brain, but the blood in my right (the connected side) flows to my sister's left, and vice versa for her. It's estimated that we share a web of one hundred veins as well as our skull bones. Our cerebral tissue is fully enmeshed, our vascular systems snarled like briar bushes, but our brains themselves are separate and functioning. Our thoughts are distinctly our own. Our selves have struggled fiercely to be unique and, in fact, we're more different than most identical twins. I like sports, but I'm also bookish, while Ruby is girlie and prefers television. When Ruby is tired, I'm hardly ever ready for bed. We're rarely hungry together and our tastes are poles apart: I prefer spicy fare, while my sister has a disturbing fondness for eggs.
Ruby believes in God and ghosts and reincarnation. (Ruby won't speculate on her next incarnation though, as if imagining something different from what she is now would betray us both.) I believe the best the dead can hope for is to be conjured from time to time, through a note of haunting music or a passage in a book.
I've never set eyes on my sister, except in mirror images and photographs, but I know Ruby's gestures as my own, through the movement of her muscles and bone. I love my sister as I love myself. I hate her that way too.
This is the story of my life. I'm calling it "Autobiography of a Conjoined Twin." But since my sister claims that it can't technically ("technically" is Ruby's current favourite word) be considered an autobiography and is opposed to my telling what she considers our story, I have agreed that she should write some chapters from her point of view. I will strive to tell my story honestly, allowing that my truth will be coloured a shade different from my sister's and acknowledging that it's sometimes necessary for the writer to connect the dots.
Excerpted from The Girls by Lori Lansens Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Reading Group Guide
"We've been called many things: freaks, horrors, monsters, devils, witches, retards, wonders, marvels. To most, we're a curiosity. In small-town Leaford, where we live and work, we're just 'The Girls.'"
Rose and Ruby Darlen are closer than most twin sisters. Indeed, they have spent their twenty-nine years on earth joined at the head. Given that they share a web of essential veins, there is no possibility that they can be separated in their lifetime.
Born in a small town in the midst of a tornado, the sisters are abandoned by their frightened teenaged mother and create a circus-like stir in the medical community. The attending nurse, however, sees their true beauty and decides to adopt them. Aunt Lovey is a warm-hearted, no-nonsense woman married to a gentle immigrant butcher, Uncle Stash. The middle-aged couple moves to a farm where the girls - "not hidden but unseen" - can live as normal a life as possible.
For identical twins, Rose and Ruby are remarkably different both on the inside and out. Ruby has a beautiful face whereas Rose's features are, in her own words, "misshapen and frankly grotesque." And whereas Rose's body is fully formed, Ruby's bottom half is dwarfish - with her tiny thighs resting on Rose's hip, she must be carried around like a small child or doll. The differences in their tastes are no less distinct. A poet and avid reader, Rose is also huge sports fan. Ruby, on the other hand, would sooner watch television than crack open a book - that is, anything but sports. They are rarely ready for bed at the same time and whereas Rose loves spicy food, Ruby has a "disturbing fondness for eggs."
On the eve of their thirtiethbirthday, Rose sets out to write her autobiography. But because their lives have been so closely shared, Ruby insists on contributing the occasional chapter. And so, as Rose types away on her laptop, the technophobic Ruby scribbles longhand on a yellow legal pad. They've established one rule for their co-writing venture: neither is allowed to see what the other has written. Together, they tell the story of their lives as the world's oldest surviving craniopagus twins - the literary Rose and straight-talking Ruby often seeing the same event in wildly different ways. Despite their extreme medical condition, the sisters express emotional truths that every reader will identify with: on losing a loved one, the hard lessons of compromise, the first stirrings of sexual desire, the pain of abandonment, and the transcendent power of love.
Rose and Ruby Darlen of Baldoon County, Ontario, are two of the most extraordinary and unforgettable characters to spring into our literature. As Kirkus Reviews puts it, "The novel's power lies in the wonderful narrative voices of Rose and Ruby. Lansens has created a richly nuanced, totally believable sibling relationship... An unsentimental, heartwarming page-turner." The National Post writes: "Lansens's beautiful writing is so detailed that it is often easy to forget that the material is not based on a true story. She captures what it would be like never to sleep, bathe, go for a walk, or meet friends on your own."
1. Rose begins her autobiography with a list of things she has never experienced. How does she revise this list in the final chapter - and what does the revised passage reveal about how she has evolved over the course of the novel?
2. As a fictionalized autobiography, The Girls offers many insights into the art of the memoir. What challenges does Rose encounter while writing - and how does she deal with them? Consider, for instance, her decision to write the book chronologically.
3. Throughout your reading, did you ever have to remind yourself that The Girls is a novel as opposed to an actual memoir?
4. Ruby innocently reveals information that Rose is either withholding or simply hasn't broached yet. What impact did these revelations have on you? How would you describe the sisters' respective writing styles?
5. The novel contains many comic moments. Which scenes stand out for you as most amusing?
6. The Girls has been described as ultimately optimistic. What role does hope play in the story? How do the girls triumph over their situation? What role does Aunt Lovey play in helping them to become strong, both emotionally and physically?
7. "We've been called many things: freaks, horrors, monsters, devils, witches, retards, wonders, marvels...In small-town Leaford, where we live and work, we're just 'The Girls.'" What role does language play in the novel with respect to naming and labeling?
8. Aunt Lovey and Uncle Stash are deeply committed to one another and very much in love. How do you understand Uncle Stash's infidelity in this context?
9. The novel is set near the Windsor-Detroit border, where the Ambassador Bridge joins Canada and the U.S. Does the novel's setting have metaphorical significance in your view?
10. Rose writes: "There is some alienation, of course, in being so different, but it's also been fascinating, and a unique opportunity, I think, to have observed our generation without fully participating in it." Besides Rose and Ruby, who else might be considered an outsider in the novel?
11. The Girls contains numerous parallels and symmetries. For example, both Rose and her daughter will never know their birth mother. What other parallels and symmetries - in terms of plot, character and setting - caught your attention?
12. How did you respond to the scene with Frankie Foyle? Were you curious about the sisters' sexuality before you reached this chapter? What other aspects of conjoinment fascinated you or helped you to see the world differently?
13. Discuss the various mother figures that appear in The Girls.
14. How did you feel about the ending - in particular, not knowing precisely what happens to the sisters?
15. Imagine that you were a neighbour or co-worker of Ruby and Rose. Which sister do you think you'd get along with better?
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