My Sister, My Love: The Intimate Story of Skyler Rampike by Joyce Carol Oates Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of My Sister, My Love: The Intimate Story of Skyler Rampike
Book Review: Tabloid Hell
Summary: 4 Stars
In this dark novel of family dysfunction at its most terrifying, Joyce Carol Oates weaves a tale of a wealthy suburban family, obsessed with its youngest family member's stardom as an ice-skating princess, and how the older sibling, awkward and unable to keep up with the family image, is shunted aside.
Young Bliss Rampike ("Bliss" being a stage name) is pushed to excel. Dolled up (literally), she resembles a porcelain image. Nothing about her seems real, and when any possibility of a real girl emerges, her mother, terrifyingly adroit in her stage-mother role, is there to prod
her on.
The older brother Skylar is also there, with his dark thoughts and terrifying moments of clumsiness. In family portraits for the media, he is pushed to remove the "pain" look from his face.
Behind these moments, of course, Skylar also remembers a time...before Bliss, before his awkwardness...when he was "the little man", his mother's adored child.
This could simply be a tale of sibling rivalry, or one of living in the eye of the media. But it all becomes "tabloid hell", when one mysterious night, Bliss is found dead in the furnace room.
Most of the book is presented from the perspective of Skylar Rampike, who takes the reader down a long and winding road of awkwardness, terror, and emotional disturbance...However, the story is uneven, diverging frequently, and full of footnotes to explain and describe events.
At the end, something of the mystery is revealed, but many unanswered questions remain. Is anything true? Is it all just a fabrication by a disturbed young man? Did the young boy suffer from more than emotional abuse at the hands of his mother? The relationship is twisted to the point that Skylar "leaves" the family shortly after the murder...first to be hospitalized and then for many years to reside in "special schools"...But even after he is an adult, he stays away. The reader suspects this detachment is more than escape from the media storm...He seems to be struggling to save his very soul.
In this family horror tale, resembling the story of Jon-Benet Ramsey, the beauty queen murdered at approximately the same time as the child in this book, Ms. Oates has crafted a truly ingenious description of family life gone awry. At times, I found the story tedious, with its winding and weaving down many paths...but I couldn't put it down or discard it. I had to plod along to the gory finish.
I would not recommend this book for those who are in search of light-hearted stories with a happy ending. The reader has to be enthralled by the pursuit of the answers the book can provide in order to hang in there.
I was unsure of how to rate this book, since it would not have wide appeal. I decided on four stars...it is excellent writing and a beautifully crafted exploration of the psyche of the characters...but many would find it tedious and rambling.
Ms. Oates is not everyone's "cup of tea", and after reading this one, I'll probably wait awhile before submerging myself in another of her books, although I have several awaiting me on my To Be Read stack.
Book Review: Re-Imagining An Infamous Case
Summary: 4 Stars
Very prolific author Joyce Carol Oates' latest lengthy novel MY SISTER, MY LOVE: THE INTIMATE STORY OF SKYLER RAMPIKE is quite obviously "inspired" by the still unsolved Ramsey murder case of over ten years ago. Names, locations, and a whole lot of facts have been changed to prevent lawsuits in this "re-imagining" but Oates still manages to put forth a pretty compelling tale of "what might have happened" in that infamous child murder. The story is told from the viewpoint of six year old ice skating princess and murder victim, Bliss Rampike's, brother Skyler. Nine years old at the time of the tragedy but writing his memoirs ten years later, he makes some sharp satiric observations about upper middle class suburban life in his rambling account. The Rampike parents "Bix" and "Betsy" come plausibly alive as shallow, upwardly mobile strivers both before and after the tragedy that changed their lives. The final quarter of the book includes a first person novella that describes Skyler's teenage years as a resident at a school for troubled rich kids (Skyler battles addictions among other problems) and his doomed romance with the daughter of a famous athlete who in a very familiar sounding manner was tried but not convicted of the murder of his ex-wife and her boyfriend. The book concludes with Skyler at age almost twenty visiting his mother for the last time, seeing his father for the first time in years and the revelation of what really happened to his sister. The style of the book is not for everyone as it is filled with footnotes, asides from both the narrator and author Oates and other devices Miss Oates often employs in her writing. The book is really quite a bit too long and could have benefited from an editor's pen but at this point in her career Joyce Carol apparently writes whatever she pleases. Book Review: Who buys her books/
Summary: 1 Stars
Luckily this was a library book. I would not have been happy if I had paid good money for it. Does Ms. Oats know that it is Americans that buy her books? Or don't, as the case may be.Book Review: deep satire that bludgeons the American dream
Summary: 4 Stars
In New Jersey, Rampike family patriarch Bix is a woman chasing abusive intimidating father; his compliant wife Betsey focuses on one thing pushing their daughter Bliss, into becoming an internationally famous winning figure skater. Their other child nine years old son Skyler is irrelevant to either parent except if they need someone to bully. The Rampike family lifestyle abruptly dies when the star Bliss is murdered violently in the furnace room by someone who stabbed her multiple times.
A decade later the late Bliss' brother remains filled with guilt over her unsolved death while also shouldering the belief of almost everyone familiar with the case that he out of a jealous rage caused by her getting all the attention killed his sibling. Sky has no one as neither parent offers him comfort until now nineteen and having been haunted alone for ten years he receives the letter from his dying mother that tells him what happened on that fatal day when the façade of what he thought was the perfect family collapsed under the weight of the homicide.
An obvious tie to the Jon Benet tragedy, this is a deep satire that bludgeons the American dream in which appearances with no substance counts above all else; image is everything hiding dysfunctional relationships. The story line is clever especially with "footnotes" to add to the feel that Sky is "reading" the true family biography written by his mommy. The story line is padded somewhat by a novella "First Love, Farewell" written by Skylar that enables the audience to better understand how as a teen he views relationships, but also distracts from the prime theme of what happened on that day. Still fans will appreciate Joyce Carol Oates keen look at the real American dream of obsession, excessiveness, and materialism.
Harriet Klausner
Book Review: The tiny foot notes
Summary: 4 Stars
Joyce Carol Oates new novel "My sister, My Love" is a wonderful look at the contemporary culture of America's upper-middle-class. Of course the unsolved murder of Jon Benet Ramsey flows throughout the story "with actual names and locations changed".
This novel, is absolutely wonderful. My only problem is the "tiny, tiny print of the foot notes". They are almost impossible to read and they are a very important part of this satirical tale of woe.