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”.
Born during a once-in-a-generation tornado to a teen Mom who immediately disappears, the girls are adopted by the nurse who attended their birth, Aunt Lovey, and her larger-than-life immigrant husband, Uncle Stash. Although technically identical twins, the sisters are a study in contrasts: Rose is tall and fully formed, but due to a stretching effect where her head meets Ruby's, her “features are misshapen and frankly grotesque”. Ruby has a beautiful face but stunted legs and club feet, resulting in her spending her entire life clinging to Rose's neck and waist like a carried child. Rose loves writing and watching sports, while Ruby likes trashy TV and searching for Native artefacts in the fields of the family farm. Since their faces are turned slightly away from one another, they can only talk face-to-face with a series of mirrors, and their differing perspectives are evident in everything they write about.
And that's the most interesting part of this book – the format. Rose – who has always processed her experiences through writing poems and short stories – begins like this:
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.On the other hand, Ruby doesn't think of herself as a writer, so her voice is chatty and unpolished. At one point she even says, “I hate when Rose talks the way she writes. She can sound so pretentious.” Both sisters – who have agreed not to show each other what they're writing until the project is finished – muse about the nature of memoirs and try to guess what the other is focussing on. It was always interesting to read their different perspectives on the same events and funny to imagine Ruby trying to plan a surprise party for Rose for their upcoming 30th birthday. There are many, many anecdotes (spanning generations) captured in these pages – with Rose trying to form them into a story arc and Ruby writing mainly in the present – and all together, it paints a portrait of extraordinary people who have lived ordinary (and more than you'd think, separate) lives, complete with the worrying about aging parents, yearning for romantic love, and searching for a way to leave a mark on the world that we all experience.
By the end of The Girls, with the mounting ill effects of the aneurysm affecting their ability to write and otherwise get around, the book becomes more introspective; whereas at first Rose was anxious to finish a polished and publishable manuscript, in the end, she accepted that creating art for its own sake is oftentimes enough. After rereading her beginning paragraph, Rose amends:
I have never looked into my sister's eyes, but I've seen inside her soul. I have never worn a hat, but I have been kissed like that. I have never raised both arms at once, but the moon beguiled me still. Sleep is for suckers. I like the bus just fine. And though I've never climbed a tree, I've scaled a mountain, and that's a hell of a thing.Author Lori Lansens pulled off a tricky effect here: the reader empathises with the twins without ever feeling sorry for them; they are real – and separate – women, simply trying to record their lives (and the lives of those they've loved) as the aneurysm ticks away. And if an autobiography of conjoined twins isn't interesting enough, the differing points of view, divergent memories, and the insight into the writing process elevates this book to the literary. I thoroughly enjoyed The Girls.
I got an email from the library last week, saying that since I was in their literature course last summer, I might be interested in a similar upcoming event: They are bringing in a professor to lead a discussion about a series of Canadian books (many of which I've already read) in the hopes that the participants would eventually create their own little reading group along the same lines, using library facilities as they choose. I was interested until I googled the part of the email I didn't understand: Third Age Learning. As that apparently means "for senior citizens", that isn't for me -- yet -- but it did prompt me to pick up this book. Too bad I'll never know what the Lit Prof has to say about it.
