Once We Were Sisters: A Memoir
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“A searing and intimate memoir about love turned deadly.” —The BBC
“An intimate illumination of sisterhood and loss.” —People
When Sheila Kohler was thirty-seven, she received the heart-stopping news that her sister Maxine, only two years older, was killed when her husband drove them off a deserted road in Johannesburg. Stunned by the news, she immediately flew back to the country where she was born, determined to find answers and forced to reckon with his history of violence and the lingering effects of their most unusual childhood—one marked by death and the misguided love of their mother.
In her signature spare and incisive prose, Sheila Kohler recounts the lives she and her sister led. Flashing back to their storybook childhood at the family estate, Crossways, Kohler tells of the death of her father when she and Maxine were girls, which led to the family abandoning their house and the girls being raised by their mother, at turns distant and suffocating. We follow them to the cloistered Anglican boarding school where they first learn of separation and later their studies in Rome and Paris where they plan grand lives for themselves—lives that are interrupted when both marry young and discover they have made poor choices. Kohler evokes the bond between sisters and shows how that bond changes but never breaks, even after death.
“A beautiful and disturbing memoir of a beloved sister who died at the age of thirty-nine in circumstances that strongly suggest murder. . . . Highly recommended.” —Joyce Carol Oates
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Sheila Kohler. (2017). Once We Were Sisters: A Memoir. Penguin Publishing Group.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Sheila Kohler. 2017. Once We Were Sisters: A Memoir. Penguin Publishing Group.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Sheila Kohler, Once We Were Sisters: A Memoir. Penguin Publishing Group, 2017.
MLA Citation (style guide)Sheila Kohler. Once We Were Sisters: A Memoir. Penguin Publishing Group, 2017.
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- ONE OF PEOPLE MAGAZINE’S BEST NEW BOOKS
“A searing and intimate memoir about love turned deadly.” —The BBC
“An intimate illumination of sisterhood and loss.” —People
When Sheila Kohler was thirty-seven, she received the heart-stopping news that her sister Maxine, only two years older, was killed when her husband drove them off a deserted road in Johannesburg. Stunned by the news, she immediately flew back to the country where she was born, determined to find answers and forced to reckon with his history of violence and the lingering effects of their most unusual childhood—one marked by death and the misguided love of their mother.
In her signature spare and incisive prose, Sheila Kohler recounts the lives she and her sister led. Flashing back to their storybook childhood at the family estate, Crossways, Kohler tells of the death of her father when she and Maxine were girls, which led to the family abandoning their house and the girls being raised by their mother, at turns distant and suffocating. We follow them to the cloistered Anglican boarding school where they first learn of separation and later their studies in Rome and Paris where they plan grand lives for themselves—lives that are interrupted when both marry young and discover they have made poor choices. Kohler evokes the bond between sisters and shows how that bond changes but never breaks, even after death.
“A beautiful and disturbing memoir of a beloved sister who died at the age of thirty-nine in circumstances that strongly suggest murder. . . . Highly recommended.” —Joyce Carol Oates - reviews
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Starred review from October 15, 2016
Novelist Kohler (Dreaming for Freud, 2014, etc.) reflects on her beloved older sister, Maxine, who was tragically killed in a car accident at the age of 39.In this intimate, exquisitely written memoir, the author's first work of nonfiction, she explores the impenetrable bond that can exist between sisters. As the daughters of a wealthy white timber merchant, Sheila and Maxine enjoyed all of the privileges of living on a vast estate outside of Johannesburg in the postwar years under apartheid. Yet upon their father's untimely death, their seemingly idyllic lives were disrupted as their domineering and impulsive mother abandoned their home and moved with the girls to various new settings. In chapters alternately moving back and forth in time, Kohler recalls pivotal moments throughout their lives: their experiences living on the family estate, being shuttled off to an Anglican boarding school, and their glamorous travels to European cities together as young women, travels that unfortunately led to their early and regrettable decisions to marry. Eventually, raising their families in different cities, each was forced to confront unfaithful husbands--in Maxine's case, an increasingly violent man who would become responsible for her death. Through these shifts of time and with an expanding consciousness, Kohler subtly seeks to unravel secrets that emerge within each individual. Maxine's life and the mysterious circumstances surrounding her death serve as a touchstone and became a source of inspiration for the author's writing. "In story after story," writes Kohler, "I conjure up my sister in various disguises, as well as other figures from our past. Her bright image leads me onward like a candle in the night. Again and again in various forms and shapes I write her story, colored by my own feelings of love and guilt." In spare, delicate prose, Kohler brings a seasoned novelist's skills to this deeply moving, compelling memoir.COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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December 1, 2016
Kohler (The Bay of Foxes, 2012; Dreaming for Freud, 2014) has previously written about her sister, Maxine, in her fiction. It was one way she dealt with her sister's tragic death, at only 39, in a car accident that Kohler is convinced Maxine's abusive husband orchestrated. In this memoir, Kohler writes about Maxine without the veil of fiction. The sisters grew up privileged in South Africa, where their parents' wealth made it possible for them to have a childhood that included servants, boarding schools, trips to Paris, and an ignorance to apartheid's injustices. Both girls married young, to passionate yet terribleand in Maxine's case, extremely violentmen, and Kohler depicts idyllic childhood moments giving way to disturbing marital scenes. Uniquely, Kohler relies on her memory while also acknowledging its limits, even periodically allowing one of the included photos to negate her words on the page. It all makes for a tragic yet gorgeous story that will appeal to those interested in the nature of memory, South African history, and fraught family relationships.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)
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“A searing and intimate memoir about love turned deadly.” —The BBC
“An intimate illumination of sisterhood and loss.” —People
When Sheila Kohler was thirty-seven, she received the heart-stopping news that her sister Maxine, only two years older, was killed when her husband drove them off a deserted road in Johannesburg. Stunned by the news, she immediately flew back to the country where she was born, determined to find answers and forced to reckon with his history of violence and the lingering effects of their most unusual childhood—one marked by death and the misguided love of their mother.
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