Laura Zigman’s ‘Small World’ is a love letter to sisters built through disability and death

Joyce Mellishman lives in a lovely apartment in a beautiful blue Victorian house in Cambridge. She has a fascinating archivist job at her EverMore, a company that digitizes photographs and other memorabilia-related documents, helping people tell the story of her family. (Joyce, author of “Small World,” Laura, even embellishes these stories a bit with the kind of humorous, detail-scheming sleight of hand that Zigman excels at.) Joyce is also obsessed with Small World. has become Local online her message her board. One of her favorite pastimes hers is creating prose poems from community posts (here a stray cat warning, there a lone exile reaches out, and some grammatical corrections along the way. there is). That online haven, where Joyce is a lurk rather than a poster, is also a safe place. A perfect hiding place, even from yourself. especially from myself. ”

Newly divorced and nearing the Big Five, Joyce’s world is set in Joyce’s cozy Cambridge home with her older sister, Lydia (who is also recently divorced), after spending nearly 30 years in Los Angeles. When I moved to the nest, I turned over to some extent. This living arrangement, which is supposedly supposed to be a temporary affair, actually proves to be a mixed bag. There are opportunities to reconnect, but their relationship remains edgy that neither wants to address or mitigate. , as Joyce points out, “‘What happened to Jane’s baby?’ But over time, these simmering sibling tensions take on a more flammable nature.

Joyce and Lydia had a third sister, Eleanor, who was born with cerebral palsy until they were eight and twelve. In the late 60s and early 70s, as Zigman so eloquently described, parents of children with disabilities relied heavily on themselves and the grassroots networks they created to care for their children. was doing. Louise, Joyce, and Lydia’s formidable mother — “she didn’t graduate from college and knew little how to boil an egg, but was never asked for an answer” — was just such a group’s decisive, devoted mother. Louise’s laser-sharp focus on Eleanor and her constant, resolute, and admirable impetus to force the world to make more space for her disabled daughter However, as for Joyce and Lydia, the same careful focus left Louise with a blind spot. Louise was wonderful in looking after Eleanor. She excelled at encouraging, nurturing, and supporting other parents. When’s Joyce and Lydia? Not really.

In intermittent episodes that make up a story unlike any legacy Joyce might capture as part of her Evermore work, Ziggman explores Joyce and Lydia’s early family life, a mixture of benignness and aggressive neglect. Weaving in sharp, revealing glimpses into their shared childhood, which includes both. Because our problems weren’t as serious as those of our sister Eleanor.'”) But this is no sympathy party. The story of the Mellishman sisters comes to life with vivid details of ’70s fashion and “a bowl of salted mixed nuts from a vacuum-sealed can.” Permanently brew coffee with Styrofoam cups and Coffee Mate accessories. Hairy carpet and wood paneled dens. Rice paper ceiling light shades, a fancy stereo system, and Easy-Bake Ovens. I also love Joyce’s outspoken boss, Erin, and I quickly fell in love with the kind-hearted summer camp owner. He’s a friendly bear in his T-his shirt from Steppenwolf and has a simple talent that Louise lacked. Including Joyce and Lydia in Eleanor’s world.That said, I’m not sure if we’ve seen Louise’s clear struggles as a mother, her utter refusal to give up in the face of her true adversity. What we know is to Zigman’s credit.

In a story that partially deals with frayed and broken relationships, Zigman’s ability to unleash the transformative magic that occurs when people find their true connection to others makes these pages shine. “Small World” is a novel that Zigman wrote earlier, with a distinctly autobiographical element and well-revealed in her acknowledgments page, and, in my opinion, one alive and no more. One is a brave and wonderful love letter to two dead sisters. In fact, the Zigman sisters grace the bookends of their novels. “Small World” is dedicated to Sheryl Ann her Zigman, who died in 1965. Linda receives her final words at Zigman’s acknowledgment. Perhaps the kindest message of love — hers one of the many that the book conveys — is Linda’s reaction when Zigman tells her he intends to work on this story. “I trust you.”

small world

Laura Zigman

Ecco, 304 pages, $27.99

Daneet Steffens is a journalist and critic. You can find her on Twitter and on her Instagram @daneetsteffens.