Light sister, dark sister

the long version

A stunning novel about two sisters, bonded to each other in the net of a family, and how each of them finds a way to break free. Gray always believed her sister, Bobbie, was the brilliant one; their father, Max, confirmed it. Bobbie was the star, the one whose life was shot through with light. If Bobbie was the light sister, Gray saw herself as the dark one: invisible, depressed, in Bobbie's shadow. Yet Gray is the first to understand that Bobbie's increasingly erratic behavior may be not superior precocity but rather the early signs of mania. Diagnosed as possibly schizophrenic, Bobbie embarks on bizarre and dangerous adventures, while Gray becomes determined to move away from the family and create a new life for herself. Yet even as Gray finds a supportive boyfriend, acceptance at Harvard, a vocation, she feels she is held back by menacing questions that she cannot avoid - questions about sexuality, her sister, her father, herself; questions that threaten to destroy all Gray has worked so hard to create. . Full of real characters, unconventional wisdom about families, and the special insights that can come from pain, Lee Walmsley's first novel is a triumph. Marked by intelligence and humor, Light Sister, Dark Sister is a beautiful book that readers will be unable to forget.