THE SISTER

Ginny, a once-prominent lepidopterist, finds comfort in sameness. She lives alone, plagued by painful arthritis, in the family's crumbling Dorset mansion. After fifty years away, her sister Vivian returns, overflowing with life and energy and shattering Ginny's sense of peace and order. Vivian's return opens the floodgates of memory, and moldy, well-hidden family secrets spill out, disrupting Ginny's precise world. Juliet Mills gives a bravura performance as Ginny, revealing childhood resentments, affections, uncertainties, and desires. Mills expertly conveys Ginny's deteriorating grip on reality—from her perceptions of deliberate, if subtle, family tortures suffered at the hands of her desperate alcoholic mother to her constant need to please her career-obsessed father. Documentary filmmaker/author Poppy Adams zeroes in on Ruth Rendell territory with a vengeance. S.J.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine [Published: NOVEMBER 2008]