Review by Booklist Review
Imagine being 13 years old and discovering you have a younger sister secreted away in a mental institution. For Jacobs, the implications of her family's utter rejection of this sibling, diagnosed with hydrocephalus and labeled mentally retarded at birth, are not fully revealed until she reaches adulthood and survives her own battles with alcoholism and an unsuccessful marriage. When she finally deems herself ready to come face-to-face with the sister she's never seen, Jacobs unearths a shocking portrait of abandonment and denial, exposing parents who were woefully ill equipped to handle imperfection in either of their daughters. For her part, Jacobs admits to being a conflicted sibling. As a child, she accepted her parents' draconian decree that Anne be denied access to even minimal family contact. As an adult, a guilt-driven Jacobs tries to compensate for those years of neglect by integrating Anne into her own unsettled lifestyle. With disarming candor, Jacobs creates a graphic account of one family's physical loss and one woman's emotional gain. --Carol Haggas Copyright 2005 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
A former Baltimore lawyer writes poignantly of her life-altering decision to meet her retarded sister for the first time. Although she'd known about her younger sister since she was 13, Jacobs never met Anne (incarcerated for most of her life in a state hospital) until the two were in their 30s. Born a twin in 1957 and afflicted with hydrocephalus ("water on the brain"), Anne was instantly hidden away in a private nursing home by her wealthy, status-conscious parents, who worried about the retarded child's effect on her twin, and also on her older sister, Molly (called Brucie). Although Anne's condition stabilized, the parents still refused to bring her home or visit her. Hoping to redirect her own life after derailment by alcoholism and divorce, author Jacobs, the mother of two sons, explores the factors that persuaded her to finally meet Anne in the early 1990s. Throughout the memoir, Jacobs faces the painful, cruel evidence of her family's neglect and denial. Knowing Anne revives for Jacobs a youthful enthusiasm and spontaneity. Anne becomes for the author her "vital counterpart": "She had what the world I grew up in had suppressed in me." Painful secrets are brought to light in this rueful, honest account. Agent, William Clegg. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
In part a tale of mistakes and roads not taken, this book transcends these to stand as Jacobs's tale of redemption and healing. The title ostensibly refers to Anne, a younger sister who has been institutionalized since birth. It refers also to the author, who uses this memoir as a method to reveal herself. Jacobs seeks out her younger sister (against the wishes of her parents and of Anne's twin, Laura) and, over time, grows to appreciate the person Anne has become. Jacobs refrains from aggrandizing both her recovery from alcoholism and her initial decision to invite Anne into her family; she is forthright about the internecine struggles her actions cause. Jacobs is desperate for connection, and here she immortalizes both her struggle and the person who helped her heal-a person whose virtues would otherwise remain unsung. And although this is a memoir, it has an ending as poignant and unexpected as any work of fiction. Recommended for all libraries.-Audrey Snowden, Cleveland P.L. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Debut memoir introduces us to the author's mentally retarded sister, whom Jacobs herself did not meet until both were in their 30s. In 1957, when Jacobs was three, her mother gave birth to twins. Laura came home; Anne, born with hydrocephalus, was institutionalized. Jacobs didn't learn of this sister's existence until adolescence, and even then the family almost never spoke of Anne. Her parents visited rarely. For her part, Jacobs went off to boarding school, where she developed passions for playing the piano, speaking Chinese and getting drunk. After Chatham Hall came a prestigious college, then law school and marriage, all of which Jacobs undertook with little thought of Anne. It was not until she separated from her husband and tried to overcome alcoholism for the umpteenth time that Jacobs decided to meet her lost sister. Anne, it turned out, lived at a group home not far away. Though their first encounter was awkward, the sisters began to visit each other regularly. Jacobs delved into Anne's medical files and was stunned by her parents' callous refusal to have any sort of relationship with Anne, their reasoning being that maintaining an unruffled upper-class life was more important than their daughter's well-being. That Jacobs is able to depict her parents' neglect without utterly demonizing them is a testimony to her skill as a writer. The book is filled with lovely images: The Victorian home of her childhood "sat like a dowager atop a hill"; her grandmother was "as domineering as a mother superior and as calculating as a first-class Parisian madam." (Jacobs does tend to overuse convent imagery, likening countless people to nuns.) The epilogue brings the book to an unexpected, emotionally devastating close. A cut above the usual I-survived-a-dysfunctional-family tale. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
