Once We Were Sisters
by Sheila Kohler
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Pub Date 2 Feb 2017 | Archive Date 2 Feb 2017
Description
Maxine is just shy of her fortieth birthday when her husband, a brilliant and respected surgeon, drives their car off the road and kills her. Devastated, Sheila returns to South Africa, determined to find answers to her sister's sudden death at the hands of her husband.
More haunting, however, are the questions. How had she failed to protect her sister? Was Maxine's murder a matter of accident, or destiny? What lies in the soil of their troubled motherland that condemns its women to such violence?
Powerful, moving and tragic, Once We Were Sisters is an act of love, an extraordinary account of an unspeakable loss.
Advance Praise
'Beautiful and disturbing . . . It is a tragic tale, with echoes of cultural sexism and misogyny, yet a triumphant story of a young woman's liberation from this culture and her emergence as a writer' - Joyce Carol Oates
'Kohler has put together this heartfelt, suspenseful confession with a lifetime's worth of skill and an abundance of inborn genius' - Edmund White
Available Editions
| EDITION | Ebook |
| ISBN | 9781782119999 |
| PRICE | £11.99 (GBP) |
Featured Reviews
ANN A, Reviewer
Beautifully written, the author pours out her distress at the loss of her sister, by the words she writes, you can feel the heartache that she shares through the pages. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, it gives you a glimpse into the authors life and you walk hand in hand through the trials and tribulations, sharing the pain that she still carries through the decades.
T B, Reviewer
I found Sheila's story to be very moving and also very sad. The lives of both her and her sister had could have been so much better and fulfilling if other opportunities had come along. I think Sheila is very brave to write her story and she is to be applauded for it.
Amina M, Reviewer
This was heart wrenching, a memoir about sisterhood, that bond that unites us to another human being, so that she becomes a whole part of you.
Sheila and Maxine had very privileged lives in Johannesburg, in a big estate, with servants and a nanny. Their father died when she and her sister were pretty young. With a self-centred mother and volture relatives, the girls had to figure out love and the world on their own.
Sheila chose to leave South Africa, Maxine stayed there. Even if the two girls were financially secure, travelled to a lot of different places, France, Italy, Greece, their personal lives weren’t a real success.
At 37, Sheila is told her sister passed away, when she gets home, she discovers the circumstances of her sister’s “accident”, Carl, Maxine’s husband was at the wheel, he survived, but Maxine didn’t.
Throughout her career, Sheila has only written about her sister’s death in a fictional way but in this memoir, she pours her heart and soul and tells us all about her life, her sister, the apartheid, her family, the deepest secrets of her being.
Sheila misses her sister, still regrets not helping her and feels guilty for not being able to protect her. After 35 years, Sheila still bears the scars of that loss.
Thanks to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for this early read.
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