The Alphabet Sisters (52 page)

MONICA:
I agree. It made everything more fragile and therefore more precious. When there were nine of us, when Dad was alive, it was like being part of a solar system, I thought. All revolving around one another, vaguely keeping in place. If you looked up or around, you knew who you would see. Dad dying changed that forever. I got—and still have—such a sense of things being able to change in an instant, and that a gap could appear at any moment, which would not just mean that terrible grief and shock, but also the shifting around, trying to make sense of it all. “What do we do now?” It’s made me—not obsessive, exactly, about thinking about you all, brothers, mum, as well as sisters—but so conscious of it. Being far away in Ireland sometimes makes me feel so sad, because I have a longing just to be close and in the middle of you all, and to feel safe and sure of the world. Wanting to be back to being eight years old again.

LEA:
It was a big gift Mum and Dad gave us—that sense of safety when we were kids. Mum thinks that the house had a lot to do with our sense of ourselves and a certain confidence. This big, beautiful, solid home we had to go off to school from and come home to every day. Incredible security. And also Mum and Dad when there were troubles, both so solid, making us know we would be fine, we would get through, it’d be okay. I still have that sense from them mostly, although not always, since that gap in the wall that Dad’s death opened up. But if he opened it, it means he’s there somewhere on the other side of it. Hope so, sisters.

Regarding battlefields. All is well and yes, I feel I am
very
grown up and mature except when I’m tired, which always seems to happen when I am back in the bosom of the family. Then I get the sooks and am back in those eight-year-old shoes again. I think, for me, it is hard flying in and out for brief visits. I found it easier in a way being there on a continuing basis, like during the time with Dad when he was dying (except for that hard bit to it). I needed to be held within the family circle physically for a while and I think I regained my footing. I’m pretty wobbly on some of the trips back, as much because of what I’ve left behind (busy work, needing a holiday, being a bit stressed) as what I’m heading into on my visit (busy families, busy lives). It’s hard to gauge immediately or even in a few days where things lie with your sisters. You do have some of the most intimate talks with your sisters, but like any relationship, you can’t guarantee one another you’ll be in the place for a deep talk when each of you needs that connection.

MONICA:
It’s been strange/odd/different/bad/good being away from you all the past couple of years, when so much has been happening in the family [the family home being sold, pregnancies, two new babies]. At times it’s been a bit like reading a book about you all, or hearing a radio serial. I’ve heard about your lives on the phone or read e-mails, rather than seen any of it happen, which gives it all that air of unreality. It’s been especially strange sometimes when I was working on the new book and shifting and changing plot lines or characters, and then reading a family e-mail and thinking “Well, perhaps now is the time that this happens or that character realizes this or these two people start being honest with each other.” Then I remember, “You can’t do that, these are real people in this e-mail, not your characters.” I know from past experience that it takes a little while to find my place in the family again after being away, trying to fit in, trying not to be hurt by all the in-jokes that have come up while I’ve been away. And also really wishing it could be like this all the time, all of us sitting around the table talking and laughing and trying to out-do one another, which is one of my favorite things in the world. But I also know I need to be away, because it is too seductive otherwise and I would never want to do anything other than talk and laugh with you.

I agree that we have very different relationships with one another. That makes sense. It criss-crosses back and forth, I think, depending on what each of us needs at the time. And of course it is different because of proximity—Maura and Marie, you see each other so regularly, that must make a big difference. It’s different for Lea and I, who drop in and out only a couple of times a year, or in my case these days, once every year or so.

LEA:
We’re kind of like four intersecting circles (damn, if we were all together I’d draw you a diagram right now)—lots of bits overlapping, but also the bits of us that are our other lives, that we’re proud of, protective of, et cetera. I remember thinking when I was back in South Australia after Dad died that I could just stay there foreeever and that would be fine. But then there’s this little voice and this little finger saying, “C’mon, c’mon, there’s other things you have to do with your life, c’mon …” You think, oh, it’s hard and I miss everyone and I feel torn but I have to do this (and let’s be honest I quite like it most of the time) but I do miss them.

MARIE:
Mmm, but sometimes it’s hard being the ones in the home circle. It’s easier for you to put niggle bits and annoyances onto the other person because you’re in a bad mood and they happen to be around. Or you’re constantly not meeting their expectations rather than just failing every Christmas. That’s not in any way to diminish how fraught it can be coming home—been there, done that, observed it, sympathize et cetera. I agree very much, too, about the Dad time. I think it gave us new respect for one another (watching what each of you gave to him—shaves, bed baths, conversations, pain management, humor). I also learned more about and from each of you than I ever imagined. I remember a particular conversation one night with Lea that really changed my world view about Dad. I realized the rest of the family (or most of you) had moved on from our past way of dealing with/being with him, and I had to step over a bridge and grow up in a way. That’s a great thing to have someone actually give you, rather than having to work it out slowly for yourself. I think that happens a lot with my sisters—sudden insights borrowed and stolen!

LEA:
I agree totally with Marie regarding sudden insights—and the other side of that is that when you unknowingly/unwittingly “give them” you tend to get them at the same time. It was in talking with you about Dad that I made big leaps too. I think I was about a half a step ahead of you—or maybe we were pairs in a three-legged race!

MAURA:
Marie? What niggly bits? Did I miss something? I know you hate everyone else in the family but I thought what we had was beautiful!

MONICA:
I think there are flashpoints or triggers that come up in surprising ways. Something like wanting Mum’s undivided attention or feeling picked on or left out or misunderstood comes from childhood and still hangs around. I can be rational about situations, usually, but sometimes I have an immediate deep emotional response inside me that surprises me. Alarms me, even.

LEA:
It’s primal, sweetie, and as such it involves, sometimes, a simple desire to kill.

MARIE:
Guys, sorry, hell hour has descended … baby crying, Ruby screaming, Ulli trying to show me eight different ways of bouncing a ball against a wall … Can I get back to you on stuff or rejoin you later if you’re still going? My fave story for today, by the way—not sisters but siblings. We were outside, Rafael [new baby] lying on the lawn, Ruby [three years old] riding her three-wheeler bike. “Can you put his feet there, Mum?” she asked. “I want to use his feet as a road.”

MONICA:
[Later] If we had all had a big fight, in the way the three Quinlans did in
The Alphabet Sisters,
do you think it would have taken us three years to reunite?

LEA:
I think that question is answered by the comments about Dad’s dying and where that has taken us all. I think we all need space from time to time. Including you who are all physically nearby.

MAURA:
I can’t think of anything that any of you could do that would upset me so badly that I’d give up the laughs and the other good things about knowing you.

MARIE:
I
can
actually imagine us falling out for three years or more if we fought over the same thing the Quinlans did—one of us “taking” another’s man. I can imagine that would bust things up incredibly. But I can’t imagine any of my sisters doing that. I know that’s easy to say and that one shouldn’t deny true love and all the stuff that Carrie and Matthew went through, but I think it would be a taboo for us. I can, however, picture other smaller betrayals—indeed I know we’ve all inflicted them along the way—but I think we’d be far more likely to disguise how hurt we were (and bitch madly behind backs) rather than blow things up publicly. We’d much rather be seen as stoic than sensitive, I think.

MONICA:
I can’t stand not talking to one of you for a week, let alone three years. I can see exactly why it happened to the Quinlans, because they needed that space from one another, but I think we’ve found that space in different ways.

Final question: Have you had people saying: “Is
The Alphabet Sisters
about you and your sisters?” What did you say and did you mind being asked?

LEA:
Yes, people have asked if it is about us. I just say (again and again) “Monica knows we would kill her if she modeled any of them on us.” I also point out that you cleverly (sensibly?) made none of them look like us. I think you were very clever the way you wrote it. There are some great stories that you have, of course, stolen from our
shared
childhood, however the ones you picked, you write about so beautifully and funnily that I can but say you have done us proud. And you have stayed right away from any character traits or any more important or serious stories that might implicate us, so to speak.

MAURA:
Crikey. where to begin? Here’s what happens:

PERSON:
I’ve just finished/am in the middle of Monica’s new book.

ME:
Oh, yes, and what do you think of it?

PERSON:
I’m really enjoying it. So which sister are you?

ME:
Maura.

PERSON:
No, I mean, in the book?

ME:
None of them, obviously.

PERSON:
Oh, come on, you must be one of them.

(At this stage, conversation deteriorates into “am not/are so” debacle.)

MARIE:
Someone told me today they had just read the book and tried to work out which sister was me. I don’t mind at all being asked. I love it that my sister has written a book and that people like reading it enough to get caught up in the characters. I love stumbling upon little stories in the book that are based on stuff we did as kids. And I couldn’t get over that I sobbed and sobbed at the end, even while thinking, “For God’s sake, your sister made this up!”

By the way, I just asked my daughters if they think my sisters and me get on. Ulli responded, “Yeah, derr!”

READING GROUP QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION

1. The Alphabet Sisters begins and ends with chapters from Bett’s perspective. Why do you think that author Monica McInerney chose to frame the novel in this way? Do you think that Bett is the guiding narrative voice in the story? Why or why not?

2. Which sister do you feel most sympathetic toward when the book begins? Did your allegiance shift as the story unfolded?

3. The girls’ grandmother, Lola, is a larger-than-life personality. What lessons have her son and grandchildren learned from her? What would you say are the guiding principles of Lola’s life?

4. Lola christens her grandchildren “The Alphabet Sisters.” What does this group identity mean to Anna, Bett, and Carrie? How does each of them react to being on stage and in the spotlight?

5. How does Lola’s invitation to her eightieth birthday spur each sister to make a change in her life? What do you think their parents felt about the daughters’ feud? Why didn’t the sisters’ parents get more involved?

6. How does each sister resent and admire the other? How did their time apart strengthen their individual personalities and their bonds with one another? What detrimental effects does the feud have on the sisters?

7. “Still avoiding the truth after all these years?” Anna asks Bett. Do you think Bett is guilty of Anna’s accusation? Why or why not? What unpleasant revelations do her sisters muffle about their lives?

8. “Lola used to talk to them as if they were her co-conspirators, her equals,” remembers Bett. How is Lola’s attitude toward her grandchildren unconventional? In which ways is she traditional? How does her mindset differ from that of her daughter-in-law, Geraldine?

9. What inspires Lola to force her granddaughters to produce her musical? Why do they agree to do it? How is music the glue that binds them together?

10. After Ellen is attacked by a dog, how does her personality change? In which ways is outward appearance an important element in Anna’s life, both before and after Ellen’s attack? How do her sisters also grapple with the ramifications of their looks?

11. How does the love triangle between Bett, Carrie, and Matthew affect each of its participants? What does Carrie love about Matthew? How does this compare to the way that Bett feels about him?

12. Discuss Anna’s husband, Glenn. How does she characterize her relationship with him at the beginning of their time together? What about their marriage now?

13. By the end of the book, each sister has discovered—or rediscovered—her perfect match. How are Richard and Anna, Matthew and Carrie, and Daniel and Bett complementary to one another? How does each couple approach love and romance differently? How does this compare and contrast to the relationship of the women’s parents, Jim and Geraldine?