Sisters by Daisy Johnson (review by Mica Corson)
September and July are ten months apart but share the same birthday. They are inseparable siblings dealing with the severity of adolescence and are bound together by promises that one will never let the other forget. In Sisters, author Daisy Johnson explores the dynamic web tying two girls together and the bonds of envy and impulse that develop over their young lives.
This tense and unsettling novel begins with sisters September and July returning in their teens to the house where they were born - the Settle House. Johnson’s prose has strong poetic elements, relying heavily on rhythm and repetition. It is overflowing with visceral images that mark the dread and unease surrounding their new home. Much like the image of a fractured face that makes up the cover of this contemporary fiction novel, the prose is a mix of short and fractured sentences that create an almost fervent pace, heightening the tension of the ominous unknown event that led the sisters and their mother to the Settle House.
July, the younger sister, acts as our narrator, providing the audience with vulnerable and candid confessions in a first-person perspective as she explores the Settle House, a decaying seaside cottage in Yorkshire. Through the novel’s three parts, we are also given third-person perspectives from September and the girls’ mother, Sheela.
September is the leader, the caretaker, and the manipulator. Her mother finds her stubborn and obstinate and far too capable of cruelty. However, to her younger sister, she is an idol. September is a confident and all-encompassing presence. “Yes. I think then, as I have so many times, she is the person I have always wanted to be. I am a shape cut out of the universe, tinged with ever-dying stars-and she is the creature to fill the gap I leave in the world.” (Johnson, 91) July views herself as an extension of September, following her words only. Where September goes, so does she, following in her shadow. July is the peacemaker, the introvert, and the only one to soften September’s harsh edge, creating a pair so connected they would not even let their mother have an intimate role in their lives.
Their mother, Sheela, had long struggled before returning to the house. As a writer, mother, and woman, she has dealt with depression, borderline abusive relationships, and a growing fear for her isolated daughters. “They always seemed to be telling some great secret, some truth only they could know. The look in their eyes when she came across them, the sudden silence that she could not quite break into.” (Johnson, 106) Moving to the Settle house after an ominously vague “what had happened,” Sheela’s mental health is low, leaving July to rely even more on September.
From its first page to the last, this novel contains no dialogue. The format of dialogue remains, propelling short conversations primarily between the sisters. Nevertheless, its absence is striking, keeping the narrative internal and philosophical. An eerie, unsettling nature comes to the Settle House with the sisters as their behavior becomes more erratic in their isolation. The external plot is slow-moving, intersected with details from the sisters’ early life and the incident that brought them to the Settle House. Instead, the riveting and twisting relationship between September and July creates a profoundly moving story.
Sisters by Daisy Johnson, published in 2020 by Riverhead Books. 210 pages
Mica Corson is an avid reader and aspiring writer residing in the Pacific Northwest. She recently graduated from Central Washington University with a Professional and Creative Writing degree.